This was supposed to be a post about why I haven’t been online for over a week and the bombshell my FIL dropped on us — he’s moving to the Philippines for some woman named Misty that he met online. But I haven’t had a chance to finish it yet because yesterday morning The Free Range Stupid crashed through my gate. Sorry, Liz. I’ll have the tale of the made-for-FaceBook-Lifetime movie up by Tuesday. Hopefully.

I knew that Cinco de Mayo — the made up holiday designed to get drunk gringos to buy Mexican piss water beer — in this ghetto neighborhood of mine was going to be bad, but I thought it would be from the loud music and drunk assholes. I never thought that some idiot would crash through my front gate with her POS pick-up truck while leaving the garage sale across the street!

Do you all understand now why I pretty much hate people? Do you get why I prefer staying at home instead of going out among The Free Range Stupid? Two summers ago this happened to me and I said then that no one believes me when I say that weird, random shit always happens to me.

But it does. On a regular basis.

Back to my story…

I was in my bedroom watching TV when my husband yelled “someone just hit the gate!” I didn’t hear him at first, so when he yelled again, I came running out the front door to find my previously locked, sliding gate bent and pushed up against the bumper of our car — note the lock still hanging intact in the picture. The woman was telling my husband that her brakes locked and smoked and she couldn’t stop. And this helps us how, lady? I told the woman it did not matter because I still had to call the sheriff to come out and take a report.

This infuriated her. Likely because she has no papers. However, my husband says that is a racist statement and I shouldn’t repeat it. I told him to look at the neighborhood we live in again then reconsider that particular attitude. I swear, if we were to drive through the streets yelling “La Migra! La Migra!” out the window, there would be people running out the back of every house except ours and the only other white family here.

The woman claims that she just bought her truck a few days ago, didn’t understand why she couldn’t complete her U-turn, why the brakes failed and wasn’t quite sure if she had insurance on it yet. No, I’m not kidding. She kept asking to not have a police report taken. I kept telling her I had no choice because our landlord requires it when there is major property damage. She also begged the deputies not to take a report, stating that her husband was a licensed contractor and could fix the damage for us. I said no, not happening.

Did I mention that the impact of her truck on the gate also broke the bumper of my car? It did. That seemed to piss her off even more. The deputies took the report, gave me her information and left. A few minutes later, my neighbor, M., the one I kind of like, started yelling at me about the accident while I was on the phone with my friend Susan.

Apparently, this woman was the daughter of M.’s friend and, according to the mother, I was rude to her daughter! All I have to say is that’s rich, considering she’s the one that crashed through my gate, damaged my car and bitched because I called the cops! My neighbor insisted that I give her my landlord’s phone number so The Idiot could call him and if I didn’t, she knew someone else who could give it to her. When I refused, she got even madder. She also told me I had no right to call the sheriffs. I’m still trying to get my jaw off the floor from that little nugget. I told her it was none of her business. M. said it was her business because it involved her friend.

Funny, I thought I was M.’s friend, too. Guess I was wrong, eh? I’m not the right color or ethnic background, obviously.

But wait, there’s more!

I called my mechanic to see if either he could come take a look at my bumper or knew a body shop he trusted and could recommend. He sent someone over and as I was in my driveway speaking to him about the damage, M. came out of her house and proceeded to tell the body guy in Spanish, which she knows I don’t fully understand, what to do to my car, who would pay for it and what happened! The term unmitigated gall immediately comes to mind.

Clearly, my neighbor had hawk-eyed my house so she could stick her nose where it absolutely does not belong. I found out later that M. gave the body guy money to pay for the repairs to my fucking car!!! I am so livid, I don’t know what to do. My husband says I should just let it go. This is his mantra. My mantra, however, is if you piss me off, I will let you know in no uncertain terms. I am not one that walks away when other people jump into my personal business.

By the way, M. is a person who never calls the cops for any reason. But because I do, I am considered the “white snitch” in this neighborhood. People like her are exactly why this area is so bad; if anyone cared about this place, they would do whatever was necessary to weed out the bad elements so that we can all live in peace. This is the mindset of Mexicans who do not consider themselves Americans first. This is the way they do things in Mexico.

The problem is, we’re not in Mexico.

Call me racist, I don’t much care. I’m married to a Hispanic Jew, so anyone who believes that has serious issues. I have this thing about life in general: if I have to follow the rules, so does everyone else. It should be a simple thing, but it’s not, hence The Free Range Stupid running rampant through the world.

And they are attracted to me like a moth to a flame. Or flies on shit.

I could go into a whole diatribe about if you are living in this country, you better have papers and live by our rules, but I won’t. I will say that when immigrants come to the U.S., they need to assimilate to how we do things here because if I was living in your home country you would demand nothing less of me.

I’m already pissed off enough that this happened, worried my landlord will somehow charge us for the repairs and nervous because I no longer have the added safety of a locked gate to shield my family and home from the bad that roams my neighborhood. I don’t need another problem created by The fucking Idiot who caused the damage and is afraid of deportation because she has no papers starting issues between me and my neighbor. And making said neighbor decide that this is the one thing she will stick her nose into.

If any of you see The Publishers Clearing House dude, tell him to bring me my check already so I can move to a good neighborhood, K?

Thanks.

The Free Range Stupid Crashed Through My Gate is a post from: Last Shreds Of Sanity | Blog Designer | California Mom Blog

Image courtesy of TILT: The Information Literacy Tutorial

Last week, while I was firmly ensconced in my graphic designing-got-to-finish-this-website-now-oh-shit-the-car-died-on-the-freeway-and-the-tow-company-charged-us-three-times-for-the-fee bubble, something curious happened in the mom blog world — a blogger, Kristin Lesney-Ruiz, who has had multiple complaints and police reports about her and her husband’s shady, and possibly criminal, online activities but still manages to make money and get scads of free shit from major brands — was found to have plagiarized another very popular and well-loved blogger. Actually, it was two well-known bloggers.

And she made money off the stolen content.

But this revelation came after Lesney-Ruiz and her husband had used social media to force Ignite Social Media/Chrysler to disqualify yet another mom blogger from a contest they were running for breaking the voting rules of said competition — rules Lesney-Ruiz herself reportedly disregarded in her quest to win a trip for four to New York City. She ultimately lost that contest.

Ain’t that about a bitch?

With impeccable timing to boot!

Here I was wracking my brain every day trying to come up with coherent, original content so that someone would finally pay me for my brilliance when all I had to do was steal a few lines, post it and call it my own? And I’d get paid for that? And it would be relatively effortless? And I would get cool, expensive, free items like appliances? And full rides to blog conferences? And free vacations? For my whole family?

Fuck.

I’ve been doing it all wrong the last almost four years! And clearly wasting far too much energy trying to be my authentic self.

I always end up doing things the hard way, damn it.

I realize that social media and blogs are still relatively new territory for big brands to advertise with and confusing to many of those stuffed shirts residing high atop Ivory Tower Hill, but they all need to buy a deck of clues here. Large corporations only see their bottom line and want the biggest bang for their advertising bucks. That is sensible business. However, when dealing with what are essentially self-published, online magazines to utilize for marketing their products, they really need to vet the owners far more carefully to avoid more situations like the Lesney-Ruiz fiasco. And choose the social media companies they contract to find the blogs used more prudently.

You see, content, those seminal words that flow out of your head to your fingers and on to the virtual page — the thoughts that make your blog uniquely yours — is no longer king. Traffic, as in tons of it that shows up on a stat screen PR folk can see, is king. No one cares if that traffic is organic or artificially inflated by giveaways, Stumble Upon groups or link sharing schemes. They want numbers. Big numbers.

High traffic statistics give brands the false sense that their products will be seen by the greatest number of eyes possible with very little monetary output on their part. That’s good business, baby. So what if they have to give the blogger an iPad, all-expense paid trip or some appliances? In the whole scheme of things, that’s chump change to them. And unlike traditional print media, website posts are online and searchable for damn near infinity as opposed to the one to thirty day lifespan of a newspaper or magazine ad.

Blog promotions are cheap; Pay for it once and it’s there until the site owner closes their blog down. Google is a brand’s best friend in this digital age. And bloggers inadvertently help them save huge amounts on advertising. But major companies make themselves appear stupid by allowing their PR firms to utilize bloggers with horribly written and, as we found with Lesney-Ruiz, stolen content, for the sake of saving a buck.

If any of you have read Kristin Lesney-Ruiz’s “apology” posts, you should immediately ask yourself why this woman was being paid to write anything. Those articles are so fraught with errors that I actually got a headache from trying to straighten out the sentences in my mind. I don’t suggest any of you try that at home — it’s just not worth it. Yet she obtained profitable writing jobs, paid advertisements, products to review, free trips and appliances — seemingly without the ability to write anything resembling a meaningful thought on her own — from well-known brands because of the amount of traffic her site receives.

Hence, the literary theft.

I’m sorry, but if the chosen author cannot string two sentences together to form even one logical thought, why would any large, established company want her or him to represent them? Is traffic so damn important that correctly written words and sentences mean nothing? I can understand if the site owner has a learning disability or cognitive issues, but for someone like Lesney-Ruiz to be chosen over a good blogger who can spell, use proper sentence structure, syntax, grammar and has original content simply because of unnaturally augmented traffic numbers boggles my mind!

This makes sense only to a PR firm. And those that pay them to find bloggers like Lesney-Ruiz. I, for one, would not want my organization’s reputation sullied by using an unethical person to promote my products. But I don’t make those decisions. Yet.

I am not the best scribe in the world and there are certainly others that I want to emulate, however, I would never steal their words and claim them as my own.

Kristin Lesney-Ruiz asserts that her age (27), childhood trauma (being a foster child), a difficult pregnancy, complete ignorance of the definition of plagiarism,  only having a G.E.D. — even though she is a perpetual college student — and admiration of the real author caused her to commit copyright infringement for profit. I think she did it knowingly and is only apologizing for being caught, not for the actual theft. Kristin and her husband are now crying about being bullied over this revelation.

Really? Bullying? Because people are outraged over your blatant plagiarism?

I guess righteous indignation is only allowable for them because they sure make big stinks when things don’t go their way. But should someone else disagree with either of them or call them out on anything they’ve done wrong, it’s deemed bullying. Dissenting opinions or opinions not sanctioned by Del and Kristin Lesney-Ruiz are, in their view, evil, hurtful and the kind of bullying that makes people take their own lives.

They’ve even gone so far as to make a DCMA complaint against humorist Avitable for his parody graphic of Lesney-Ruiz’s mommy blog. Oh yes, yes they did. They are claiming plagiarism. I think the proper term for that behavior is unmitigated gall. As in they, the Ruiz’s, have the gall to cry victim over an obvious PARODY. Let’s not forget the bullying that’s going on here.

Against them.

C’mon, grow a fucking pair! You reap what you sow, honey. And the two of them have sown a lot of hate and bullying their damn selves via social media, particularly Twitter — against major brands as well as fellow bloggers. What goes around, comes around. And when it comes back to you, it’s in spades.

The two of them, and others like them, give good bloggers a bad name and only strengthen what mainstream media has said for years: bloggers are a bunch of unethical, low-educated hacks. And ‘mommy bloggers’ are the worst of them.

Thanks for that, guys.

Companies that want to use us bloggers as cheap advertising need to investigate who they are giving endorsements to more thoroughly. They also need to stop picking the same ones over and over because they have been dazzled by numbers on a statistics page. Know the author and their audience first. Read their posts. Make sure that it doesn’t hurt your brain to try to read any of them. If they don’t, those brands will be the ones with egg on their faces when their internet darling is outed for being a fraud. Wouldn’t they rather have someone with integrity representing their products rather than a blog owner who has a questionable background?

I know I would.

But again, I’m not in charge.

Yet.

How The Kristin Lesney-Ruiz Plagiarism Scandal Should Cause Brands To Choose Bloggers Based On Content, Not Traffic is a post from: Last Shreds Of Sanity | Blog Designer | California Mom Blog

At least that’s one of the scenarios that my local news put out today after a man was found to have stolen $25,000 worth of Tide liquid detergent over a 15-month period. Yes, that is what I heard — stolen from stores in record numbers, Tide laundry soap is currency for drugs. Apparently.

Or sold to Mom & Pop Shops at a discount.

Or sold to regular people who can’t afford the high prices charged in stores so that they, too, can have ultra clean laundry.

They think.

The police and media, I mean. Not the people buying hot laundry soap. Because they don’t care, they’re getting a deal on soap. That shit is expensive, y’all. With the economy in the crapper and gas prices nearly four and a half bucks a gallon, you’ve got to make concessions and cutbacks somewhere, right? Washing clothes at a laundromat isn’t cheap. Plus, what the hell do drug dealers need with cash anyway? They need clean clothes more than greenbacks, right? Gotta look fly when you’re enticing the kids to buy your wares. They can’t actually look like the smelly, skanky drug pushers they truly are, right?

Word.

CVS stores have even put Tide on lock-down, saying drug users have targeted Tide in much the same way they have targeted flu medications.

Damn those druggies for making everything more difficult for us law-abiding citizens! Baby formula has been locked up for years because of it’s use in the manufacture of methamphetamine. I already have to show my license and sign a form when I buy cold medicine for my daughter or myself, now I’m going to have to do the same thing with laundry detergent. I’ll bet they’ll limit the amount of them I can buy at one time, too. What if I have some really dirty wash to do and need more soap than usual? Will the cops come to my house to make sure I’m not selling it on the black market or hoarding it for the aftermath of the 2012 Apocalypse?

And what if I am? Will I get arrested for wanting clean clothes post-apocalypse?

Fucking meth-heads. Always screwing it up for everyone else.

Near Minneapolis, cameras caught 53-year-old Patrick Costanzo stealing more than $25,000  worth of the product over the course of 15 months.

“It’s like he put the pieces in there like Tetris pieces. He maximized that cart, there’s no wasted space,” said investigator Sean Melville of the West St. Paul police.

Costanzo would load up his cart and push right past workers. He’d also take paper towels, soda and toilet paper.

“There’s no way he can be using,” said Melville. “I hope for his own sake he’s not using that much toilet paper everyday.”

Authorities finally put an end to the sudsy spree, but with a retail price from $10 to $20 this household laundry staple has become a kind of currency of the streets. It can sell on the black market for half the price and with no serial number it’s impossible to track.

“Tide is highly recognizable, it’s very difficult to trace and it’s easily resold,” said Brad Garrett, former FBI special agent.

According to law enforcement officials, the Procter & Gamble clothes cleaner has become part of the dirty drug trade. A recent drug sting in Maryland turned up more Tide than cocaine and according to police it was not just one guy, but an organization that would hit four to five stores a day.

“It may be more financially viable for the drug dealer to exchange Tide for drugs and then resell the Tide,” Garrett told ABC News.

Using video surveillance and undercover officers, police in Prince George’s County, Md., arrested 18 people after being contacted by a Safeway about thefts.

Here’s my issue with this: when I have shopped at Wal-Mart, I am always stopped at the door and asked to show my receipt for what’s in my cart. Can’t be stealing from Wal-Mart now. So how in the hell did Costanzoy get away with stealing $25, 000 worth of Tide liquid detergent??? And no one noticed anything? Nothing just a little odd that a guy with a full cart walked out of the store without paying a dime?

Sounds like the Minneapolis Wal-Marts need a refresher course on store policies.

Tide will likely raise prices on their products because of these thefts. It’s called shrinkage. When shrinkage is high in a store or on a particular product, the prices are hiked up to compensate the manufacturer for lost revenue. This is why the prices of items in the same chain store can be different depending on where the store is located. Higher shrinkage area equals higher prices.

It’s how corporations keep the poor people poor and let the rich get richer. And save more money than the po’ folk.

I used to work Loss Prevention for Marshalls eons ago. That’s how I know these things. Plus I’m damn smart.

Tide Laundry Soap Is Currency For Drugs. Apparently. is a post from: Last Shreds Of Sanity | Blog Designer | California Mom Blog

It seems like just yesterday that you came into this world, fighting for you very life. In the blink of an eye, you went from a tiny, little baby to being a little lady. Today, you are seven years old — Mama’s Big Girl — amazing, beautiful, smart and often frustrating. You have grown so much in these last years that it blows my mind! It just seems so surreal. I didn’t have any hope of becoming a mother nearly eight years ago, but then I found out I was pregnant with you and my dream was finally coming true. Your daddy and I will sing “Happy 7th Birthday, Baby Girl” later today and wish you all the love and happiness you can handle.

Because that is really what life is all about, love. And kisses. And hugs. You can never have too much of them. And no matter what, even if you’re in really big trouble, we will always love you. Don’t forget that, ever.

I have often thought that the best parts of your daddy and I are alive and well in you. I do think it’s true — except for the attitude part, that needs to dwindle a bit. Sometimes it’s like you’re 7 going on 16. You want to do so much, see so much, all by yourself — I just want you to be my little girl for as long as possible. I don’t want to miss anything. Although I feel as if I already have.

My Angel Girl, I am so proud to be your Mama. You amaze daddy and I every day with your intelligence and silliness. We love you to the moon and back. Always.

So happy birthday, my beautiful girl. May you have a long, happy life and never know a day without love and kindness. And may you always know how to successfully repel The Free Range Stupid™ so that you don’t have to deal with them like your Mama does.

Love Always,

Mama

Happy 7th Birthday, Baby Girl! is a post from: Last Shreds Of Sanity | Blog Designer | California Mom Blog

Today is my 41st birthday. I have been told all my life that with age, comes wisdom. No one ever mentioned the black chin hairs.

Why is that? Shouldn’t all the woman books have said something about the black chin hairs we will get as we enter our fourth decade of life? Those ones that hurt like hell when you try to pluck them out and often miss because you can’t see for shit anymore now that you’re old? Mine get so bad sometimes that I have to ask my Husband to pluck them for me.

Yes, ladies, this is what you have to look forward to as you age. And pimples.

What. The. Fuck. PIMPLES?!?! I’m not a damn teenager and even when I was I didn’t have any so why in the hell do I have them now??

Mother Nature is a real psycho bitch.

I’m digressing. I tend to do that more frequently now.

I am wiser now than I was twenty years ago. I am also a wife and mother. But I really don’t feel much different. I often ask myself, “when will I start feeling like an adult?” Of course, what does it feel like to be an adult? I always thought I would get some blaring epiphany when it happened — suddenly there would be this bright glowing light and all the answers for the uncertainties of my world would be immediately placed in my brain.

That has never happened.

Well, not yet, anyway.

No, what I have for my 41 years of life is a lot of  knowledge that is sometimes random or useless, an insane need for justice, a husband who I occasionally want to bang upside the head with my cast iron skillet and one beautiful, amazing and often incredibly frustrating almost seven-year old daughter. I’m not well off, we don’t yet own our own house and we sometimes struggle to make ends meet, but I am happy. And so is my family. Even when I bitch about momentary hiccups and injustices, I’m still happy. I have bad days just like everyone else. That’s life.

Maybe feeling like a grown-up is different for everyone. I sure don’t feel how I thought I would, though. And I really could do without pimples and stubborn chin hairs.

And the grey hair. I found some in my eyebrows. I guess I need to start dying them now, too.

But this feeling of being an adult? I’m not sure if that even exists. I go on and live each day as I should — I take care of my family, work on my graphic design business and occasionally slap up a blog post or two. I worry about things. I laugh at things — often at inappropriate times. And I love. I love my daughter. I love my Husband. And I love my life. Sometimes it sucks. Sometimes it’s hard. But it’s all mine.

So happy 41st birthday to me, black chin hairs and all.

With Age, Comes Wisdom. And Black Chin Hairs. At 41. Damn. is a post from: Last Shreds Of Sanity | Blog Designer | California Mom Blog

I should probably explain why I hate February. And Lent. Here goes: when members of my Husband’s family die, it’s usually in February. I have no idea why. Maybe they don’t like Summer in SoCal. Normally this would not be an issue, however they tend to pass near the end of the month and the funerals generally get scheduled for about aweek later.

On my birthday. March 1st. It’s happened several times already.

At least my relatives have the good manners to die in either January or November, thereby completely leaving my birthday alone and also not messing with Christmas or Thanksgiving. Much. Hubs’ relatives, however, tend to do this follow the leader thing and they have picked the second month of the year as the family’s  “drop like flies month”.

This past Thursday, my Husband’s paternal Grandmother passed away.  She was 95 years old, had just recovered from a stroke and was a very tough lady. Unfortunately, this was not unexpected.

I asked my husband, half-jokingly, but actually dead serious, if we could ask his family to please not schedule the funeral for my birthday. He laughed and said no. Asshole. However, I knew my fate was already sealed. You see, two years ago almost to the day, Hubs’ maternal Grandmother died. Her funeral was on my 39th birthday. His mother’s side of the family had enough manners to wait until the wake/reception/food thingy — held in the ballroom of a swanky hotel — to start fighting and bitching about who got what of their mom’s possessions. It did not end well.

Yesterday, my FIL informed us that the funeral  for his mother would be — can you guess? — on my birthday.

My Husband immediately laughed, gave me a look and reminded his dad that it was also my 41st birthday. That’s when my FIL explained that he had tried to schedule the service for Friday, but because of Lent, no priests were available for services on that day — or any Friday, apparently, until the Lenten season ends with Easter.

So this is why all those funerals were on my day! Now I hate Lent. What? It’s better than blaming a dead relative for having the audacity to die in February, isn’t it? I’m not even Catholic and I have had to give up my birthdays because of it. And the day before as well because funerals in this family last two damn days.

Don’t judge me.

Doesn’t that score me points somewhere? A non-Catholic sacrificing for Lent has to count for  something, right?

I’m assuming the Publishes Clearing House guy  will be here shortly with my giant check with multiple zeros or the lottery ticket I bought is a big winner. Because being forced to spend your birthdays at funerals with people who may or may not want to shank each other just to get their hands on any money the deceased left lying around is not my idea of a good time. And sometimes the food at these things sucks so we end up stopping at Tommy’s for grub on the way home.

Then I end up with heartburn.

When I was pregnant with The Diva, Hubby’s maternal aunt died, but because the funeral was two days before my actual due date and I was on bed-rest, we didn’t have to go. I did have an OB appointment on my birthday, though.

This year, as in several years past, we will have to drive to Los Angeles two days in a row and go to a funeral at St. {insert female name}’s Catholic church followed by a graveside service at the huge flowery cemetery on the hill where nearly every one of my Husband’s deceased relatives are buried. I’m not kidding. His mom, maternal grandmother and step-grandfather,  three of his four uncles, paternal grandfather and now paternal grandmother are all buried there — and that’s just the ones I can remember off-hand. His family is huge. They are all in a different section of that place, too. It’s like they wanted to be peppered around here and there for good measure. Or they just didn’t want to spend their eternal rests next to the ones that drove them batshit crazy in life.

The Diva has to be pulled out of school for this. OY.

Thank God, my FIL told me he wants to be cremated because it’s cheaper and the military will cover most of the expenses. He wants his ashes interned at The Punch Bowl in Hawaii. Hubby is thrilled with that idea because it means a free vacation to the islands we love so much.

What? I didn’t say it, he did.

I suggested we sprinkle him at Disneyland. The jury’s still out on that one.

Remember all the times I told you guys that weird, random shit always happens to me and that I’m a magnet for The Free Range Stupid? Do you believe me now?

PS: This time I’m wearing my birthday tiara to the funeral and I don’t care what anyone says about it. Should scary SIL pipe up, I may take a cue from her mama’s side of the family and shank a bitch. I’m no longer required to be polite to her since certain matriarchs have passed away and 23 years is way too fucking long for me to bite my tongue where she’s concerned. Plus, my tongue is very sore.

Bring it.

I Hate February. And Lent. is a post from: Last Shreds Of Sanity | Blog Designer | California Mom Blog

Today is Valentine’s Day. That made up by Hallmark day created to boost sales of greeting cards, stress out the men who forgot and make women without a love of their own play Adele’s Someone Like You on an endless loop while crying the ugly cry.

Yes, the day where you are either blissfully in love or thisclose to crawling into a bottle of Stoli. There is no in between today. No happy medium. You either have a Valentine or you feel like no one will ever love you. During lunch hours and rush hours today, the stores will be packed with those who failed to plan ahead. Or who received a not so subtle reminder from their wives last night. And no doubt, these poor saps will purchase things that no woman would consider a gift that represents the giver’s enduring love.

So I give you a warning. Call it a public service announcement, if you will.

These are the top 10 last minute gifts not to buy for your woman unless you want to get kicked in the nuts:

1. A Snuggie – what, you can’t be bothered to keep your woman warm?
2. Cookware – unless you plan on being the one to use it.
3. Any cleaning implement
4. A Chia Pet
5. Lingerie – we buy that to wear for you, dumbass, not the other way around.
6. An empty jewelry box – there better be something in there or you’re toast.
7. Chocolates – we buy those tomorrow when they’re half price, numnuts. Stop spending frivolously or you’ll be in bigger trouble than you already are.
8. A Forever Lazy – although my friend Jenny from The Shed loves the one she stole from her husband. But she’s the exception to the rule. Most women will kick you twice in the nads for this one. Also see #1.
9. A child’s Valentine card – knowing that you were too lazy to get a real card so you raided what was left of the kids’ class cards will put you in the dog house until at least the 4th of July, if not ’til Christmas.
10. A Valentine card not meant for the love of your life — using the excuse “it’s all they had left” will not help your argument. Trust me on this.

Should you lose your damn mind and buy any of these taboo items, I highly suggest you take tomorrow off, get thee to the jewelry store and buy her something sparkly. Add a few spa treatments to that gift for good measure. Oh, and clean the house for her. The right way. It’s the only way you might get yourself out of the dog house and laid before the 2012 Apocalypse. Otherwise, it’ll be just you and your hand for the foreseeable future.

Top 10 Last Minute Valentine Gifts NOT To Buy For Your Woman. Unless You Want To Get Kicked In The Nuts. is a post from: Last Shreds Of Sanity | Blog Designer | California Mom Blog

I’m sure you have all heard about SOPA, PIPA and SB 1867 by now. And I hope all of you are outraged about them. Some of the biggest names on the internet are so incensed over these proposed laws that they are either shutting down for 24hours or protesting in some major way. The sites shutting down and/or protesting include Google, Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, Mozilla and Wikipedia.  Although GoDaddy has since softened their stance, they initially supported SOPA wholeheartedly — that was until people started taking their business elsewhere. They lost over 37,000 domains during Move Your Domain Day. Yet another reason I hate GoDaddy.

The Constitution of these United States and The Bill of Rights gives us personal freedoms that are ours by birthright and law. However, our current government wants to regulate every thing we do — even in the privacy of our own homes.

Big Brother, much?

In an effort to curtail internet piracy, strengthen intellectual property laws — who are they kidding? These proposed laws have nothing to do with keeping anyone — or anything — safe, save for the wallets of Hollywood Big-Wigs and corporations. Under the guise of ‘security’ these bills have been introduced into the Senate with the hopes that they will pass and those with all the gold will get to decide what us peons can and cannot do on the internet.

These laws could make it so that bloggers like myself could be arrested, detained, convicted and executed without due process just for speaking out against the government. In fact, that’s just was SB 1867 says; It was quietly passed last month. It also allows bestiality for those in the military, along with repealing ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ — DADT can stay, all the other crap in that bill needs to GO! That’s the first hit to our unalienable rights.

If SOPA and PIPA pass on January 24, 2012, The MPAA and RIAA, along with their allies in Hollyweird, will get a law that will  “give the U.S. government the power to censor the Web using techniques similar to those used by China, Malaysia and Iran”. SOPA would allow the Justice Department to seek an order making allegedly piratical sites essentially vanish from the internet. That’s CENSORSHIP and a blatant attempt to strip all American citizens of their personal freedoms.

This is the email I just recieved from Mozilla, entitled Why is the Internet on strike today?:

Today, Mozilla is joining the virtual strike against Internet censorship – along with others like Wikipedia and Google – to raise awareness of US Congress legislation that could fundamentally alter the Internet we know and love.

This harmful legislation, called the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate, will be voted on as early as January 24th in the Senate.

If you live in the US, there’s still time to help stop these bills from becoming law. Please visit mozilla.org/sopa for information on the bill, and on ways you can reach out to your senators.

What makes this legislation so bad? Here’s how it would change the Web:

• Communication platforms – from YouTube to Facebook to Amazon – could be shut down if a single rights holder alleges a violation.
• It would make the Web less stable and less secure.
• Social networking sites, like Twitter or Facebook, could be forced to track and control user behavior, stunting innovation and undermining free expression.
• Your Internet provider could be required to inspect all of your traffic and browsing.

Visit mozilla.org/sopa right now for information – and make your voice heard before it’s too late.

Please join today’s strike, and help protect the Internet.

Sincerely,

Jane & Winston
Editors

This is not a Third-World country and we are not living in a dictatorship, police state or under communist rule — yet. So while we still have voices, while we can still stand up for what we believe, DO IT. We may not get another chance.

It’s only six short days until the vote. We must stop this from becoming law.

STOP #SOPA, #PIPA AND REPEAL SB 1867 BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE!!!

Stop SOPA, PIPA And Repeal SB 1867: Save Our Personal Freedoms And Constitutional Rights is a post from: Last Shreds Of Sanity | Blog Designer | California Mom Blog

Yes, I asked the question. Has Martin Luther King, Jr.’s message been subverted? Before you blurt out an answer, stop and think about it first.

In a time where the Democrats have taken a great man’s legacy, who was a registered Republican, by the way, and made him their defacto mascot for all things liberal (guess they forgot Dr. King was a preacher), where black men are always complaining about how the white man is keeping him down and they are forced to resort to violence and criminality to survive, then the short answer is yes.

Dr. Martin Luther King’s message has been crumpled up, torn apart and taped back together so poorly that it resembles nothing of the original. This man wanted peace and equality for all people, regardless of their race. He wanted a man judged by the content of his character, rather than the color of his skin.

He wanted us to all get along and respect one another, not try to destroy each other.

And what have we done? Have we honored his life by trying to be what he believed our society could be or have we spiraled down so far that we may never get back up? I believe, at least for a large part of our society, that it’s the latter. And it makes me very sad.

Would he like that his dream has been destroyed by the very people he dreamed it for?

You see, Dr. King is one of my heroes. Even though I was born after his assassination, learning about him in school made him come to life. I believed that his dream could and should become a reality. But that has not happened and I still do not understand why. There should be no racism, bigotry or hatred of anyone based on the color of their skin. As Dr. King said, a person should be judged solely on the content of their character. But that is not something that is done in this day and age. Even with a black President.

I have been called a racist because I don’t like President Obama — nothing could be further from the truth. I have been called bigoted by white Europeans because I did not know that Willie Wonka was a euphemism for white colonialists. Clearly, I’m not ‘enlightened’ enough. I am married to a Hispanic man, which makes my daughter half. Her Godmother is black and I have a black adopted brother.

Still want to call me racist?

The word racism has become a verbal slight for other ethnicities to lob at white people. It’s reverse racism. Yeah, I said it. If I had a dollar for every time I or my husband were deemed bigots because of our dislike of Obama, I’d be living on my own island in the South Pacific. It’s OK to dislike or even hate someone’s actions. It doesn’t mean you feel that way because they have a different skin color than you. I took Dr. KIng’s speech to heart and I have never judged anyone solely on the color of their skin.

But I have judged them on the content of their character. And I have run into people who call me racist because they were of bad character and black. Apparently anything said to those kind of people, even if it’s true, is considered bigotry, And don’t tell them you didn’t vote for Obama. You’ll get called the White Devil for that.

Does racism still exist in this country? Yes it does, but with a black man holding the highest political office in the land, it should be apparent that we have made great strides towards its eradication. You all need to realize that it has stop on all sides of the fence before racism will truly be dead. That means that blacks cannot use the N-word, ever. Even to your own race. No one should ever use that word again. It is the foulest one in the English language.

I want you all to think about this: If you don’t want to be treated like a stereotype, then stop acting like one. Stop shooting yourselves in the foot.

It’s just that simple.

I share Dr, King’s dream. I want everyone to be judged by what’s inside, not what color they are. The Civil Rights Movement in the 1960′s spawned the Black Power Movement. Unfortunately, some of those groups advocated violence and anarchy to achieve their goals. Still others birthed a whole generation who blame the rich white men for every problem they’ve ever had. I think Dr. King would agree that if you don’t like your circumstances, then you need to do something to affect change in your own life. Blaming a group of people for your woes is a cop-out.

Rappers need to stop promoting the Thug Life. Who in the hell wants to be a criminal? Always looking over your shoulder, wondering which car is going to pull a drive-by on your house and knowing you will eventually end up in prison or a body bag — sounds like such a great life now, doesn’t it? The Rap community needs to understand that they have glamorized murder, drugs, rape, misogyny and gangs. There is a whole generation of kids who have been stunted by this shit. And many of them believe this is how you act if you’re black. Or Hispanic. Or disaffected. Or just plain stupid.

It has to stop. NOW.

This is not what Dr. King was talking about when he said he wanted everyone to be free. Not by a long shot.

Aaron McGruder, the writer of The Boondocks, illustrates perfectly what I have been trying to get across in this post. This episode, Return of the King, explores what could happen if Dr. King did not die, but instead was in a coma for the last 30+years. How would he feel about what his dream has become?

…I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today…

 …And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

Has Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Message Been Subverted? is a post from: Last Shreds Of Sanity | Blog Designer | California Mom Blog

Anyone Who Tries To Call Me At Home: Why don’t you ever answer your phone?

Me: The Diva gave it a bath a while back and it doesn’t ring anymore.

AWTTCMAH: Why don’t you just buy a new one?

Me: It works fine except for the not ringing part. Oh and I dropped one of the handsets, so the caller ID screen doesn’t work on that one anymore. Plus the one I would want to replace it with is over $200 and I can’t justify the expense right now. I also kind of like not being disturbed by a ringing phone every 10 minutes.

AWTTCMAH: But what if there’s an emergency? Don’t you want to know about something like that?

Me: They’ll call back if it’s important. Or leave a message.

AWTTCMAH: That’s another thing. Your machine is always full. Why is that?

Me: I have messages saved.

AWTTCMAH: Why?

Me: Evidence.

AWTTCMAH: Of what? What could you possibly need so much “evidence” of?

Me: Well, there’s my Evil SIL saying she’s sorry and won’t do the things she’s been doing to me anymore. Which, of course, she’s still doing. And a former landlord admitting to the shitty things he did to us and why. Those are kept for the lawsuit. And the current landlord giving permission for us to add deadbolts to the doors to keep Ro from wandering the neighborhood while we sleep. Probably a couple of phone numbers of people I don’t want to lose. Hubby’s nieces singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to Ro when she turned 1 year old. Stuff like that.

AWTTCMAH: Why not just record it on a voice recorder?

Me: I don’t have one. And I need the time stamp stuff for proof.

AWTTCMAH: So you’ll just drag your phone to court if you have to? And how old is that thing, anyway?

Me: Yes. Why? That’s not OK? It was bought when Ro was about 4 months old. So, what? Almost seven years old? It’s a good phone. Corded base with answering machine and two cordless handsets. And when the power goes out, I can still call out for help.

AWTTCMAH: There is something not right about you, Shan.

Me: You’re just realizing this now? Boy, are you slow on the uptake.

AWTTCMAH: I got nothin’…

Me: Admit it, you still love me. I’m very loveable. And? You know no one else like me. I’m unique.

AWTTCMAH: Still, nothin’.

Me: That’s harsh, dude.

Conversations About My Phone is a post from: Last Shreds Of Sanity | Blog Designer | California Mom Blog