The online journal, notebook and playground of HFM

Winona Ryder

Check out what the prosecutors want Winona Ryder’s shoplifting punishment to be. Highlights — the girl had a lot of drugs on her at the time of her arrest, all with perscriptions, but from different doctors, and some of them under a fake name “Emily Thompson.” Also she has to complete 60 days of community service and she’s not allowed to have input on what the service will be. Plus, she has to submit her person and property to search and seizure at any time by any probation or peace officer without a warrant or probably cause. Wow.

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Thanksgiving

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Thanksgiving was really great. I went to Iowa with my brother Todd and his wife Denise and stayed at my Grandparents house. Saw the aunts, uncles, cousins, ate way too much food, went shopping and generally had a good time. I missed Spike the whole time, though. He stayed at Dan and Doug’s house. I think he had a really fun time. He was really happy I was home though. We spent all Saturday evening cuddling on the couch.
I had a really great date with Kathy last night. 🙂 We saw the movie “Solaris” which was supposed to be a really romantic movie (?) but was really a space movie instead. Then we went to Shaffer’s fondue place. It was fun, but not my favorite restaurant. The company was great, though. 🙂

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Home for the Holidays

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p class=”author”>Author Unknown

A man in Florida, in his 80s, calls his son in New York. The father says to the son, "I hate to tell you, but we’ve got some troubles here in the house. Your mother and I can’t stand each other anymore, and we’re getting a divorce. I’ve had it! I want to live out the rest of my years in peace. I’m telling you now, so you and your sister shouldn’t go into shock later when I move out."

He hangs up, and the son immediately calls his sister in the Hamptons and tells her the news. The sister says, "I’ll handle this!"

She calls Florida and says to her father, "Don’t do ANYTHING until we get there! We’ll be there Wednesday night."

The father agrees, "All right." He hangs up the phone and hollers to his wife, "Okay, they’re coming for Thanksgiving. Now, what are we going to tell them for Christmas?"

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government “Big Brother” database

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Great — our government is using the new Homeland Security measures to build a “Big Brother” database to track what you purchase.

Geek News: Pentagon confirms development of “Big Brother” test database

The Pentagon confirmed the development of a prototype database to track consumer and business transactions under an initiative called the Total Information Awareness Program (see our previous coverage). Edward Aldridge, Undersecretary of Acquisitions and Technology, met with reporters and provided more details concerning the project. The goal of the project is to develop a database that will track every consumer purchase and financial transaction to look for suspicious patterns. Red flags would be large cash withdrawals, purchases of firearms (from agents like Elevated Gunworks and so on) and biological agents, and one-way plane tickets. The goal for the project, whose technical arm is headed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), is to combine consumer transactions with immigration, law enforcement, and intelligence records to quickly identify terrorist patterns.

Funding for the project was included in the Homeland Security Act recently passed by the U.S. Senate and previously passed by the U.S. House of Representatives. The project was first brought to light by its director and advocate Admiral John Poindexter. Poindexter served as National Security Adviser during the Reagan Administration. After his service he was convicted of lying to Congress during the Iran-Contra hearings. The conviction was later overturned since Poindexter had been granted immunity for his testimony.

How many times do I have to say the emperor has no clothes before someone wakes up and listens?

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Frustration Recovery

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I’ve recovered from the crappy weekend, somewhat. In the evenings, I’ve been doing a bunch of small, “finish-it-in-one-shot” projects that have gotten small, niggling problems out of the way. And I’ve still had plenty of time to play with Spike, so he seems happy. I think if I keep working this way, I’ll get through it. It would be really nice to win the lottery, though. At the very least, there’s no way I could put the house on the market until I accomplish all of these projects anyway, and I wouldn’t be able to do it until spring. So I’m stuck here one way or another; may as well make the best of it!

I had some good things happen this weekend, actually… I had a great lunch with Lori B. while planning a scavenger hunt — details to be announced later. And I went with Dan and Doug to see the Harry Potter movie, which I loved, by the way.

I also worked out some additional organizational things to do last night, which I’ll be putting into action, tonight. They should help me get on the right track for getting stuff done around the house. I also got more work done on the inventory I’ve been doing of all my stuff. I have all of my DVDs and Videos cataloged, as well as all my electronics and a good chunk of my book library. Once I get my CDs cataloged, I can turn all of it over to my insurance company, which will lower my rates. Pretty cool.

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Crappy Weekend

I had a really crappy weekend. I worked all day Saturday on the house, especially the living room, and I got nothing at all done. I managed to get the old nails pulled out of the ceiling joists for only 1/3rd of the ceiling. I got the blocks of wood nailed up that will support the new drywall for only 1/2 of one wall.

For the backdoor, I put the second handle on the trap door, so it’s easier to open. And I ran the extension cord up from the basement. I shoved some foam around the top opening of the door, and tried to use the spray foam to fill in around the cracks on the sides of the door. That crap is really messy and hard to control and I got it on my hands and still can’t get it off. I got some of the leaves raked, but I still have to bag them, and I need to clean the gutters out again. And the rest of the leaves are falling, so I still have to do that. I need to cut back some tree limbs, and caulk the one gutter. And when am I going to find time to do that? I have to spend the evenings with the dog, to make up for the fact that he’s alone all day. The poor little guy; it’s not his fault the house is in such shitty shape.

I’m really pissed and frustrated with the house. It’s ugly as hell, and I’m not making even the slightest dent in getting it in shape. There’s only one room that’s even close to looking nice, and I’ve been in the house 10 months. At this rate, it will be 15 years before the house is in order. I hate this fucking house and want to move. There’s way too much shit to do, and there’s no way I can accomplish all this by myself. For some of these jobs I need another person, and I’m going to have to hire someone to help me. That just makes me more pissed off.

I have to do something totally different than the direction I’ve been going with the house. I need to clean out and rearrange something, or move something around. I’m thinking of just closing the living room off altogether. Maybe moving all of building supplies and materials out of the back room into the living room, putting up a door, and closing it off altogether until spring and not thinking about it. I may do that this week during the week.

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