Little Miss Pretty Baby

I see that parenting has reached an all time low. My jaw is on the floor as I'm watching a little girl being reprimanded by her mother. The child had colored the words on a handmade sign outside of the lines. The little girl, who must be between 4 and 6 years old starts crying. Her mother blandly tells her to stop crying, because the tears will ruin her makeup and it will have to be done all over again.

Welcome to the world of unfulfilled adults who spend money on gowns, hairstylists and make-up artists for little girls barely out of diapers.

Welcome to WE TVs "Little Miss Perfect". These "beauty" pageants create mini-Barbie dolls with a grown up look, adorned with overdone eye shadows, lip glosses and bouffant hair, some shaking their little asses to impress the judges. This is the show that reveals just how low our reality show psyches are willing to go. This has got to be the absolute sucking borderline.

A lot of us winced at the 1978 film Pretty Baby with Brooke Shields as a 12 year living in a brothel in the early 1900s awaiting the loss of her virginity to the highest bidder. So we've seen shock value before.

When it comes to a reality show like Little Miss Perfect with parents who have no idea of the loss of childhood being imposed on their young daughters, you have to look at these parents and who they are. It becomes apparently clear that it's all about them...

Not to mention that these pageants must be a smorgasbord for creepy pedophiles hanging out in the lobbies.

More Than The Bad Seed

I knew we were headed for trouble when an infant was brutally beaten by a 6 year old back in 1996. Article

And now we're faced with more bad seeds as we move forward in time. I think that in comparison to the 1956 film, The Bad Seed which back in the day was considered fiction, pales in comparison to the reality that we read about today. Little miss Rhoda, 8 years old, was a "pill" to say the least. It's funny how we thought, this was Hollywood telling a story based on a supposition.

In our world today, Jordan Anthony Brown, 11 years old, shot his father's pregnant fiancé, with a hunting rifle he'd gotten for Christmas. He's been charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the February 20 shooting, has been put behind bars.

Anyone who commits murder, unless it's self-defense cannot be rehabilitated. They have crossed a moral and ethical line. This child should be tried as an adult. He went all grown up when he killed a woman and her unborn child.

By 11 years old, you understand the consequences for your behavior. I love it the way kids act out as adults and then some over zealous defense attorney will cop the "but he's a kid defense". I have to take the hard line on this. Whatever the punishment, his sentence is the effect from his cause. Whatever happens happens. It's a hard lesson to learn. Evidently, not enough people are punished for their crimes because there are too many repeat offenders.

Cause and effect are strict. The 11 year old did the act that contributed to the death of two innocent victims. One an unborn child. How weird is it to have to say that someone died before they were born? It was irresponsible for the father to give this 11 year old a hunting rifle for Christmas. The father should also be held accountable. I don't feel sorry for this 11 year old, 5th grader. My thoughts are with the victims. The perpetrators of murders are not victims and should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

And--- as the great Forrest Gump would say: And that's all I have to say about that!

Eletelephony

Once there was an elephant,
Who tried to use the telephant-
No! no! I mean an elephone
Who tried to use the telephone-
(Dear me! I am not certain quite
That even now I’ve got it right.)

Howe’er it was, he got his trunk Entangled in the telephunk:

The more he tried to get it free, The louder buzzed the telephee-

(I fear I’d better drop the song Of elephop and telephong!)

Poem Eletelphony by Laura E. Richards (1850-1943)

__________________________________________________________________

Being in a contract with a company is like being in a marriage. Both parties in the beginning have the high hopes that everything will work out. Each side pledging to fulfill their part of the commitment that completes the union. But then, something goes wrong, and the party that you entrusted in the union doesn’t live up to the end of the bargain. So, you think to yourself: I need to cut my losses and move on.

So you’ve tried for a year to get what you wanted from the other party, but to no avail. This is not going to work. So when you discuss with the other party that you want to end the union, they immediately want to make you pay alimony because you want out! They want to continue to tell you that they have another option and that if you stay they will live up to the original tenet of the agreement, but --- to no avail. You want out.

So here begins my drama with Vonage. I thought I would try the service and save over 700 bucks a year on the bogus phone service that I was getting from Verizon at the time. Now Vonage can disconnect your service anytime they want without paying you a fee, but if you want out because you don’t like the service they hit you with a punishment fee, which only adds up revenue for them.

I am sick of companies and their bullshit fees. I am already stuck with this hardware that I probably won’t be able to even sell on Ebay. So I figure, being stuck with hardware I won’t use that I pay for is fee enough. So, maybe I’ll wait until the next electronic road show so that I can ship it off to the land of forgotten toys.

I wanted to be successful with Vonage and be able to refer others to the service because it would cheaper than paying exorbitant phone costs, but it just wasn’t meant to be. I remember when you wanted to cancel a service, you just cancelled it. No questions asked. I have to be grilled by their people as to why I want to get out of the service. I DON’T HAVE TO EXPLAIN ANYTHING!!!!! It’s obvious that it’s not working for me or I would have kept it!

On the 12^th of February, I called to cancel this account and was told about the alimony fee of $39.99 that I would have to pay. I asked how to avoid the charge and they told me that I could cancel on my anniversary date of February 27^th. Well, I call and guess what; they tell me I can’t cancel for free for another year because I have a 2 year commitment! I don’t recall any two year commitment and the person on the 12^th didn’t say that I had to cancel on February 27, 2010.

So, today when I call these bozos at Vonage, I am told that the person gave me incorrect information and that they are going to be handled. To which I responded, “The fact that you don’t train your people properly is not my problem, it’s yours. I was given wrong information. “

So now, I have to send a snail mail to dispute the charges. Of course, I did my research online and it’s apparent that I’m not the only one who wasn’t advised that I couldn’t get a divorce from this company for two years. I checked Clark Howard.com and found the same complaints.

http://clarkhoward.com/liveweb/shownotes/2006/06/08/11043/

So here’s the deal in a nutshell. If you are going to battle with any of these low life revenue vampires, be prepared to put in a little time. But, as they say, to thine own self be true. Fight the good fight, because you will win.

To find out more about VOIP-(Voice over internet protocol) Click here

http://www.fcc.gov/voip/

Putting It All Together

When I was growing up, when you bought something, no matter what it was, it came already assembled. Someone at all of the greedy companies that sell to us consumers, figured out they could save money and force us to put everything we buy together ourselves.

I have now become accustomed to my new best friends in the world of putting it all together: Allen Wrench and the Phillips-head screwdriver. Without them my world would go all wrong. I couldn’t make it without them. From the bedroom set, to the grill to the shelving for the DVDs to the corner TV Cabinet, to my office furniture, even my dining room table and chairs, I have had to bow down to directions that I can’t understand and ambiguous photos that look one way so that I end up putting everything together upside down and backwards.

The first thing I do on these endeavors is say to myself: Now, you’re going to be calm right? And you’re not going to muck this up, because you spent a ton of money while the company you bought it from saved a ton!

Everything you buy comes in a box waiting to be assembled. When I put my office together, I saved about 500 bucks on a desk set complete with hutches and lateral file drawers. I had the option (and this is how they get you) of having the company I bought it from assemble it for me which would have cost 50 bucks per item! I passed on that offer and as is usually my custom and in the effort to save money, (because it’s all about getting the deal), I embarked upon the journey DIY (Do It Yourself). Yes, it would have saved me time to pay to have it assembled, but I just couldn’t do it because it would have cost me another 500 bucks! It took me three hours per desk item. I felt better doing it myself, so therefore, I got paid by not having to pay more.

If you’re into good reading, instructions are not the road to take. They are so boring and confusing. Thank goodness I have enough of a brain to compare the pictures of the nuts and bolts with those in the instructions. I figure if I keep buying items and putting them together it will become my alternative to playing Scrabble or doing crossword puzzles to keep my mind on track.

The New Mother Goose

Whatever happened to accepting things you can’t change? Now, you know I had to go there. Yes, I’m in a big territory with this subject. I really have a hard time with the idea of a woman harvesting her eggs for later use, using them as property in the divorce settlement, yada, yada. Cloning the dog because you loved him so much! Newsflash! It’s not the same dog!!! It’s a carbon copy with a different soul!!!

I just want to tap into the ridiculousness of a new era. If you can’t have children, it doesn’t make you any less of an individual. We have got to stop forcing the hand of nature. I mean really. If you love children and can’t have any, adopt.
But somehow, in this society, everyone wants to change the rules. My comment for the “octomom”: If you want to have all those kids, don’t do it on my dime. I believe that everyone, especially here in California has the right to rag on her because it’s their money that’s paying.

I don’t want to hear all that fluff about women having the right to choose how many kids they can have when they’re unemployed. They don’t have a choice and neither do we as taxpayers. Just because you have eggs in your carton doesn’t mean you have to fry them all!

The other big issue is the idea of the new fatherless family: kids conceived through sperm donations. No one ever seems to think that these little babies are going to grow up knowing that their father was some guy who jacked off in a cup for money. Now, that creates a little heartbreak for anyone’s self-esteem.

In Octomom’s case, she seems more preoccupied with having kids than raising them. This entire issue is just more science and shall I say it—over birth!
There used to be this old Mother Goose Rhyme:

There was an old woman who lived in a shoe,
She had so many kids she didn’t know what to do.

Now we know how she got there! In vitro!
I used to always wonder about that rhyme when I was little. How in the world could an old woman have so many kids? Now we know how she got there! In vitro!