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Alarm Clocks Are EVIL

May25

I hate alarm clocks…….there, I said it!  They are intrusive, irritating, and mean!  They are EVIL!  They jolt me awake long before I am ready and quite often interrupt a dream I would prefer not get interrupted.  And to make matters worse, most of the time they wake me to the sound of some obnoxious song I don’t particularly like that then ends up playing over and over and over in my head ALL DAY LONG!!!!  But, the alternative is that ear-piercing repetitive BEEPING sound that just grates on my nerves and starts my day off feeling totally violated.

But, much to my dismay, they are a necessary evil.  I do have an internal alarm clock and three four-legged alarm clocks that tend to not allow me to sleep much past 7:00 am, but they all aren’t always dependable – and I do have to be sure I get up early enough to shake off the sleepiness, get a shower and do other primping and prepping, let the girls do their business, feed the girls, goof around checking emails and Facebook, read the paper, and get to work on time.  When I don’t get up early enough to do all those things, I start the day feeling rushed and disorganized.

I do, however, have a favorite part of the alarm clock that I find rather rewarding……..the snooze button.  I slap that button the first 4 or 5 times the alarm goes off so that I feel like I’m being defiant and telling the alarm clock that I am still the boss and I tell IT when I’m going to get up!  It is my little way of privately showing off my disobedient and naughty side each day.  But, the last couple of days I have been less in love with my snooze button.

Sunday night, I noticed that my alarm clock’s LED was acting funky.  It no longer displayed the time in a readable manner.  I tried unplugging it and plugging it back in.  I tried resetting it.  Nothing made the time show up properly.  Then, I tried just seeing if the alarm would come on by hitting that button that allows you to check it for sound.  Nothing!  I tried turning on the radio portion – again, nothing!  So, I came to the realization that my alarm clock DIED!  My first thought was to dance around the room singing “Ding, Dong, the witch is dead”, but soon sprung back to reality and the fact that I needed that witch to work the next morning.

I got out a small travel alarm clock I bought some time ago, but have never used, and set it and went to sleep.  I figured it will do until I can get to the store to buy a new regular alarm clock.  When the time came for it to go off on Monday morning, I was pleasantly surprised – the sound that woke me up was a low tone steady beep – not that usual blaring or clanging sound that comes from most non-music alarm clocks.  I smiled and hit the snooze (hey, the sound may have been more pleasant, but I was still going to steal those extra minutes).  Then the reason for the snooze button’s fall from grace happened.  The alarm clock went off again and I thought “that didn’t feel like 8 minutes to me”!  When I looked at the time, only FOUR minutes had passed!  REALLY????  Four minutes?????  What kind of snooze session is that?  You can’t even get comfortable again in four minutes!!!  After a couple of those, I just give in and get out of bed – no sense in lying there hitting that thing every four minutes.

So, I will be making sure I get out there and buy a new alarm clock………anyone know of one that I can program to only go off when a song I don’t mind having play in my head all day is playing?

Reality TV – Really?

Jan1

I wanna know whose reality Reality TV is based on?  I don’t know where they get some of these people – I don’t know anyone who acts the way most on Reality TV shows act or, if they do, I doubt they’d do it on national TV in front of millions of people!  As I flip channels, I realize that the art of writing an entertaining TV drama or situation comedy has just about died!  Yeah, there are some good shows out there, but I wonder what exactly brought about the change in what we call entertainment.

Case in point – how many “Real Housewives” from anywhere actually talk, act, and seem proud to be the way the ones on TV do?  I have never actually watched an episode of any of the “Real Housewives” shows – the clips on the ads are enough to tell me there isn’t anything “Real” about it!

OK – I admit, I do get into some of the Reality TV shows…..I’m not totally anti-Reality TV!  I like ones that are contest oriented or I can learn something from - Top Chef, Project Runway, Dancing With The Stars, Iron Chef America, and a few others.   I also occasionally watch Tabitha’s Salon Takeover and Say Yes To The Dress just for the heck of it!  

When I was a child, I used to think that shows like Leave It To Beaver and Ozzie and Harriett were REAL – that someone secretly followed them around with a camera and filmed everything they do and we got to watch them……AND…..that someone was secretly following me and my family around with a camera filming everything WE did and somewhere else in the world someone got to watch US!  I used to play act so that my life would be more interesting to those who were watching me from somewhere across the globe!  It never occurred to me to act like an idiot for their entertainment – quite the contrary – I tried to behave like an adult so they would think I was older and more sophisticated than I really was!

Do we really care what Steven Seagal, the Kardashians, the Osbournes, Jon and Kate, the housewives, or any of the others like them are doing?  Do we really think it is “real” and not staged?  (after all, even I staged MY reality show when I was younger)

Can you imagine what the rest of the world must think of us when they watch these shows?  After all, we claim them to be “Reality TV” and most people on these types of shows act stupid, whore-ish, mad, abusive, brash, or just plain idiotic — they must think that is the way a typical American acts!  What must they think of us?  I, for one, would much prefer they think we are more like Ozzie and Harriett than a Real Housewife!

Now — one of the newest shows is Hoarders – yes, I know there are people who live like that – I have known a few personally (not quite that bad, mind you)!  But, why in the world would they want to bring TV cameras into their home and show their filth to the world?  I have not actually seen one of these episodes, either, because the clips have been enough to turn my stomach!  I get embarrassed when someone stops in and I have dishes in the sink and haven’t vacuumed the dog hair up in a day or two – and I’d panic if they actually opened that closet or two that I cram everything into for storage!  I would think being one of those on that show would be devastating!

I think it is just the “get on the bandwagon” theory — like most TV seasons tend to be:  one cop, law, or medical show gets high ratings and the next season there are 2 or 3 more like them to try to steal the ratings from them!  One Reality TV show got a lot of attention and they started popping up all over the place.  I want to know when the old-fashioned TV shows will come back — where are all the creators and writers that can actually be creative enough to come up with a fictional story line and write some dialogue and get us interested in the characters?  There are some out there, but we need more — we need to get off the “Reality” bandwagon and back on the “Fictional” bandwagon!

Pet Peeve of the day

Dec12

I am renewing a pet peeve I posted about in January that still tends to irritate me whenever I encounter it….what gives with this?  Am I missing something here?  This baffles me to no end!!!  Come on people – unless you have a Mommie that follows you around and does it for you, take care of your own business!!!

The source of my irritation involves those sanitary paper liners for public restrooms.  The intended use of these is a good thing and many people use them to help maintain some level of sanitation in public restrooms.  What bothers me are the people who use them and then just get up and leave the stall without disposing of the liner – they just leave it on the seat for the next person to deal with.  Come on — are they THAT paranoid of germs that they can’t carefully touch the outer edges of a paper liner that they didn’t mind touching when they put it in place and just push it into the toilet?  It’s not like they have to crumple it up in their hands to toss it in a trash receptacle.  They use the same hands to use toilet paper before they get up – if you get my drift (at least I would hope they do).   They are even going to go right out and wash their hands (again, at least I would hope they do).  AND – it was THEIR butt that was on the liner!!   DUH!!!  It is totally selfish and disrespectful to leave it for the next person or someone responsible for cleaning the restroom to take care of — we certainly don’t want to touch something they had their butt on – especially if they aren’t willing to do so!!!

YIELD!!!

Sep10

f08d42c7af8e0a62Can we please provide a mandatory class to all Sanford drivers to remind them what the YIELD sign means?  It means “yield the right of way”!  You should slow down and decide if you can safely enter the flow of traffic – if not, you need to stop until you can because the flow of traffic on the street you wish to merge into has the right of way! 

It does NOT mean “speed up and squeeze or push your way into the flow of traffic” or “everyone has to move over so you can get in” — you do NOT have the right of way!

Yes, people should shift over into another lane, if possible, out of courtesy so that merging traffic can enter the flow.  BUT – it is NOT required AND it is not always safely possible for someone to change lanes!

So, please – Sanford drivers – I beg of you – look up what the rules are surrounding yield signs and show a little patience!!!