Creepy

Posted on January 30, 2004 by Frog

I’ve been selling things on eBay for some months now and have really gotten into the whole commerce thing. In fact, I’m really a big freak because when something sells and someone actually pays for the item, I yell COMMERCE and get busy with mailing the thing out. The other night a CD I had out there for the 3rd time finally sold for a mega-huge amount ($1.00). I was so excited that I lifted my arms over my head to give high-fives but, alas, I was alone. (see above: big freak)

After I package an item up, I email the buyer and let them know that the item is in the mail. I figure it is a nice thing to do and it makes the whole process a little bit friendly. Sometimes the buyer writes back and says thanks for letting me know, but generally I don’t get a response. I’m not expecting a response. With all that said, the following is an email exchange with a very creepy guy, the kind you don’t take home to momma.

My comments in italic.

—Original Message—–
From: Frog
Sent: Jan 28, 2004 7:29 PM
To: Creep
Subject: Ebay Purchase: 2590712203-Boy George

Thanks for purchasing the Boy George CD. I’ll put it in the mail on
Thursday morning.

Regards,
Frog

—Original Message—–
From: Creep
To: Frog
Subject: Thank you
Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 22:24:36 -0800 (GMT-08:00)

Hi Frug uh, you spelled my name wrong, thank you for the positive feedback !!
Where about in the US are you?

Creep

—–Original Message—–
From: Frog
Sent: Jan 29, 2004 5:26 AM
To: Creep
Subject: RE: Thank you

I’m in Virginia. I sent the CD first class so you should have it at
the beginning of next week. I hope you enjoy.

Regards,
Frog

—Original Message—–
From: Creep
To: Frog
Subject: RE: Thank you
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 08:20:49 -0800 (GMT-08:00)

Thank you for your prompt response, Frog. got my name right that time
I wish there were more people in this world like you!

Creep

I wasn’t sure how to reply to that and, perhaps, I should have stopped there.

—–Original Message—–
From: Frog
Sent: Jan 29, 2004 8:56 AM
To: Creep
Subject: RE: Thank you

You know–the same can be said for you. Thanks again.

Regards,
Frog

—Original Message—–
From: Creep
Reply-To: Creep
To: Frog
Subject: RE: Thank you
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 18:16:52 -0800 (GMT-08:00)

Awww… thank you, that’s very sweet of you. You seem like such a nice person, I want to know more about you, but don’t want you to think that I’m some kind of wierdo! It’s just soooo refreshing to meet someone “normal”.

Creep

ok, if you can’t spell weirdo and you’ve continued this conversation for this long you probably are a weirdo

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When I Get Old

Posted on January 29, 2004 by Frog

When I get old this is how I want it to be:
Having lunch with my old lady friends in the cool bar-side of a neighborhood place (not the family oriented side)
Telling our friends what a bargain our totally pink outfit is (not that I’ll be the one buying the pink outfit)
Shouting to each other that we should check the obituaries to see if we know anyone who has gone on
Checking the obituaries and finding at least 2 people we sort-of knew and exclaiming “I think I should drive to Tappahannock to go to the funeral”
Happily declare that you’ll have steak and eggs for lunch
Ordering a round of Rose for lunch

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The Reasons are Varied

Posted on January 29, 2004 by Frog

Last weekend we went to an auto parts store to get supplies for the generator and I finally picked up an item I’ve been thinking about buying for some time now. I decided that I needed to “trick-out” my Honda. You know because all the cool kids were doing it.

Today I saw one on a Ford mini-van (one of those early square boxy things) and I thought go on sista! I’m not sure why she got one but maybe if I drove one of the boxiest vehicles on the planet I’d want something to spice it up too.

I bought mine because I thought it was funny when I saw it on another car and I thought it would be even funnier on my car. I’m a graying old fart staring down my 36th birthday for crying out loud. I am also prepared to defend my “trick” by saying that I’m prickly and my car should be as well.

So, what do you think?

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Ctrl+Alt+Del saved me

Posted on January 29, 2004 by Frog

Oh so many years ago I worked for a bank and I was my department’s computer guru. Please keep the snickering to yourself. I can’t tell you how many times I asked co-workers if they had done Ctrl+Alt+Del before getting me into their offices or cubes. Unfortunately not many could answer in the affirmative.

The better-half received the following blurb in an Info Week newsletter he gets. When I read it, I felt compelled to post it.

”I didn’t know it was going to be a cultural icon. I did a lot of other things than CtrlAltDelete, but I’m famous for that one.” – David Bradley, who came up with the computer world’s most famous three-key combination. Bradley is retiring from IBM on Friday after 28-1/2 years with the company.

Thanks Mr. Bradley and enjoy your retirement.

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An Original Thought

Posted on January 28, 2004 by Frog

There are 3 commercials that immediately come to my mind that I think are the suckiest suck commercials ever and that’s saying something. The first one is easy: Ditech loans (any of their commercials). The next one is the Crest Whitestrips where we seem to have fallen into a knock-off of Sex and the City. The third one is brought to us by Geico and it involves a knock-off of This Old House. Actually I suppose I should give Geico some credit for not including that lizard.

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Memory Lane

Posted on January 28, 2004 by Frog

Yesterday afternoon I was going through a box of cookbooks we ended up with from the MIL’s house on Christmas Day. I’m not sure what you do on Christmas Day but cleaning out a cupboard shelf is part of what we did. In addition to finding some books that I’m sure will sell on eBay, I found some little pieces of history. Are you ready for a trip down memory lane?

There are 2 things I like about this one. The first thing is the groovy graphic and the second thing I circled in red.

I’m sure reading this pamphlet inspired countless women to take up the trade.

And, this last item is really only going to appeal to a very small audience. It is a hometown memory. When this place and its big rival Miller & Rhoads closed, the area wept.

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Disjointed, but it is my blog

Posted on January 27, 2004 by Frog

I finally finished reading Wintering and let me tell you that if Kate Moses was channeling Sylvia Plath when she wrote it, then the book is brilliant. If Moses was just layering imagery on top of imagery on top of imagery because that’s the way she writes, then it wasn’t so brilliant. This I know from all my experience as a NY Times Best Seller writer.

Something else that I know–if I had ever met or hung out with Sylvia she wouldn’t have had the opportunity to turn on the stove, I would have throttled her.

I made a snow angel today.

This morning when I took the flannel sheets off the bed, I put the fitted sheet over my head and my entire face showed through the huge hole in the sheet. Said sheet is now in the rag pile. You know it is bad when you wake up at 2am and your foot is stuck in the hole.

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Food Round-Up

Posted on January 27, 2004 by Frog

One of the original thoughts of making this blog was to include entries on one of my favorite things–food. I think I’ve been doing a better job of that as of late although if you’ve slogged through my previous entries on restaurants you may think I’ve done too much. To that I say: Grasshopper, too much is never enough.

Since the weekend here are the highlights of what we’ve cooked up:
Breakfast Burritos (our own creation cooked up after eating breakfast tacos in Austin)
Steak and Baked Potatoes (no new ground there but we did grill in bone-chilling temperatures)
Cheddar and Asparagus soup (from a mix a friend gave us–I added frozen asparagus tips)
Chicken Paprikash (from allrecipes.com–we served over egg noodles)
Portugese Chourico and Kale soup (we make it with spinach instead)

The breakfast burritos have become one of our favorite breakfast dishes. Here’s the deal:
Buy a pack of burrito flour tortillas. The better half slaps them down in a large skillet right before we’re ready to eat. The fresher they are the better (which is rather obvious–but you’ll notice the difference if you have one that is old and one right out of a new bag). Buy a pack of link sausage. I realize you could just get ground sausage since that’s the end result but we buy the links because we like them with other breakfast goodies. Take the sausage out of their casings. We usually have 4-5 links depending on how we divided up the pack of sausages. Chop a small onion and add it and the sausage to a small skillet. Open a can of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce and fish a pepper out. Chop that up and add to the skillet. You can spoon some adobo sauce into the skillet too. Pack the rest of the contents in an old artichoke heart jar and store in the refrigerator for next week’s burrito. Meanwhile have your side-kick whip up some scrambled eggs. We use 4 eggs and some half & half. I usually put a little Old Bay into the mix (I love that stuff). When the time comes, I toss in some cheese. I’m not picky about the cheese–we’ve used american cheese, an italian blend, monterey jack, etc. I’m not fond of cheddar in eggs so I don’t use it for this dish–if you love cheddar and eggs, go for it. If we have any leftover white rice, I give it a quick turn in the microwave.

The better-half does the heating trick with the tortillas (in and out of the skillet so the tortilla is warmed and pliable) and then I build the burritos. We usually get 3 decent sized burritos out of this recipe.

The better-half said I should mention that we heat our plates in a 200 degree oven so that the burritos stay warm while I build them.

I should also mention that when I typed the words breakfast taco I said “mmm”. When the better-half read that part of the entry he said “breakfast tacos, mmm”.

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Snow, finally

Posted on January 26, 2004 by Frog

We finally have snow–about 4 inches. It is misting right now but since it is 18 degrees outside it is a frozen mist. Tonight we are slated for ice which is always wonderful. I’m glad the generator has had its oil changed and got some TLC on Saturday…we’ll probably need to pull it out tomorrow morning.

Speaking of generators, while we were fueling up the truck on Saturday a guy was filling 3 5-gallon containers. For our generator that’s 3 days or more worth of running power. Either he was over-reacting or he has one big daddy generator.

On a completely unrelated note, this is the 300th entry of Frog and Goat–nifty.

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Here Comes the Snow

Posted on January 24, 2004 by Frog

We’re due for some snow (finally!) tonight into tomorrow. We actually have 3-5 inches predicted with up to a quarter-inch of ice. The ice part is a bit troublesome. It is typical that we get ice and then lose power and then are stuck in our house for a day. With that in mind, I’m doing laundry, the dishes and the better-half is servicing the generator (which actually sounds kind of dirty).

Of course with these preparations it won’t snow and we’ll just have to sit around in front of the fire tomorrow anyway.

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