And now, ladies and gentlemen, the promised guest entry by Fred:
I don’t remember if Robyn mentioned in her journal last night or not, but she asked me to ‘guest-write’ today’s bitchypoo entry. Most likely, she was taking advantage of the fact that I’m sick right now (bronchitis, bleh) and that my fever has made me prone to be more amenable to things like this. Unfortunately, she forgot one important thing.
I have no writing abilities at all.
This isn’t such a great problem in and of itself, as I’m generally able to BS enough to get by. What makes writing tonight’s entry so difficult is that I’ve done nothing for the past couple of days except sit on my ass in the house and cough (I’m trying to forget yesterday’s incident with the pool cover), taking the occasional nap break. I’m sure I could regale you with descriptions of the things my body is producing and expelling via my lungs, but I don’t want to drive Robyn’s fledgling readership away. I need something with more ‘meat’ to write about (no, not lungmeat).
I suppose I could write something about current events. Perhaps a discussion (more likely a tirade) about how Microsoft isn’t a monopoly, or how I’m sick and tired of hearing about Egypt Air flight 990 (not that the families don’t have my sympathy, but good God, it’s getting as bad as when John Kennedy’s plane went down). Hell, I could even talk about politics (go Steve Forbes!) and how I think George Bush is just riding in on his name and money, rather than on any core values.
I guess the problem with what to write boils down to this: I’m not a journaler, nor do I read any online journals, except Robyn’s. I know about lots of them as I sort of vicariously live the life of a journal reader through Robyn. I can spout the names Pamie and Xeney, and remember something about some guy driving to a phone booth in the middle of the desert. I used to read the Philip Michaels stuff and the Greg Knauss stuff, but those are more humor than journal, to me. My idea of a good read online is the ‘Talkback’ section on ZDNet each day.
Of course, I’m a geek, so this makes perfect sense. For those of you who aren’t geeks, ZDNet is provided by Ziff-Davis, publishers of such magazines as PC Magazine and Computer Shopper. The ZDNN (news) section on ZDNet has new stories daily, and readers are invited to give their feedback (’Talkback’, they call it). I get no end of pleasure seeing how my fellow humans can misspell, misquote, and pretty much butcher the English language. Robyn will tell you in a heartbeat that I’m quick with the mocking statements, a redneck Don Rickles. Mind you, I’m rarely mean with the statements, just funny (I think, maybe you should ask Robyn).
Robyn and I decided last night to allow the spud to start watching TV after dinner each night, a privilege she did not previously have. Well, she had it a couple of years ago, but got such an attitude we totally removed TV watching from her life, with the exceptions of a few well-defined times on the weekend. It worked wonders on her attitude, by the way, should any of you have attitudy kids.
Anyway, the new rule is this: She can watch TV after dinner and chores on weeknights, but she can only watch Fred-and-Robyn approved shows. Basically, this means things on Discovery, Animal Planet, The Learning Channel, The History Channel, or Public Television. No Nickelodeon, period. She seemed a little excited at first, yet wary, because I made the mistake of telling her she’d ‘learn’ something from watching these shows. Once she started watching them (one about microbes and other things found in a drop of water and one about Kodiak bears in Alaska) she loved them. She prattled on about bacteria and bear cubs the rest of the night. Matter of fact, the first thing she said to me this morning was about bears. She’s already asked what she can watch again tonight, so it appears to be a hit.
Now, if we could just get her to turn off the lights when she leaves a room