In this story, the poky little puppy wandered to another land, far, far away. A place where puppies aren’t safe. A place called South Korea. And in this place, the Poky little puppy had his DNA cloned and merged with genes similar to those of a sea anemone, which is an underwater creature. This was done by a scientist who said that he was was doing it to produce a puppy that, because of a long lifespan, might help cure human illness. However, what this merging did was TURN THE PUPPY INTO A GLOWSTICK!!!!

For comparison: The glowstick

Glowstick 1.0

The puppy:

Poky puppy 2.0

Please, enlighten me?

Recently, there was a fantastic discussion on my blog about what happens to cadavers when they are donated to science. Many ethical questions were explored and I’m still bouncing the final thoughts around in my mind. I enjoy well-presented debates a great deal and have had this one on my mind. Because of it, I was googling around (googling around sounds much naughtier than it is) and found the Lifegem website.

Initially, I was as repelled by the idea brought forth in this website as I would be by the thought of wearing 6 inch heels and running a marathon. My initial take on Lifegem is that it is a website that offers to take the carbon from the cremated ashes of your loved one and make it in to a sparkling diamond that you can then wear in jewelry. This allows you both closure and the ability to wear your loved one and keep them with you until you die and then, HEY! Maybe your next of kin will make you into a sparkler!

Look, I never said my empathy extended into what I consider hairbrained ideas.

And yet, the further I read into the website, the more this seems like a decent, feasible idea to me. When people are grieving, memories are so terribly important and if they can afford this, why should it bother me? As I continued to read, the key aspect that changed my opinion was that, in order to create the diamond, they don’t have to use ashes, rather they can use hair from your loved one. Heck, your loved one doesn’t even have to be dead! If you are a stalker and have your “loved one’s” hairbrush, as long as you have the equivilent of 8oz worth of hair (a typical men’s haircut worth), you’ve got enough to create a piece of jewelry.

Personally, the more I think about this, the more I think that it isn’t any different than getting a tattoo or a painting to memorialize a lost loved one. The ashes part creeped me out because the idea of someone possibly cremating someone they love against that person’s wishes just to create jewelry from their remains is a little abnormal for me, however, I think that is an extreme thought as opposed to the “norm” for this situation.

What do you think? Beautiful memory keeper or creepy sparkly no-no?

Tina Fey's glasses help define her as a professional

Dorothy Parker once said, “Men seldom make passes. At girls who wear glasses.”

As a proud glass-wearing member of society, I’m wondering what gives her the idea that men are dissuaded by a good pair of specs? Frankly, I think they provide character and lend intrigue to a woman. Without them, I feel almost naked. My glasses are one more way for me to give myself a little bit of mystery.

And, let’s be honest, without them I have a bit of a moon face. There is the awful truth. It’s out and now I can’t take it back. Moony face moony face.

With my glasses, I feel smarter, more confident and, in some ways, invincible. I certainly can see, and that helps a lot. I didn’t need glasses until I was 21. I was doing support for a well-known blogging site and was spending quite a bit of time on the computer. Things began to go blurry and I started having some severe headaches. When my eyes were tested, they pronounced me with astigmatism and sent me on my way with a pair of retro shaped shades and a comment to come back yearly. And so I have.

I keep trying to make the pictures of me without glasses work, but frankly, they aren’t me and they just don’t. Being myself is sexy. Being myself is real. Besides, without my glasses, I can’t see what’s happening around me anyway, so it wouldn’t matter if someone was “passing” or not. I’d imagine it’s similar to the concept of beer goggles. I like being able to see. I think that’s sexy.

When I finished reading I laughed. And laughed and laughed and laughed. Better her than me, I thought to myself. Jen will likely defriend me at this point, and rightfully so, as I should be commiserating with her, but in the age of Chuck-e-Cheese, I’m just thankful I didn’t get roped into this particular dilemna.

AJ has never had a large party. When I go to adult parties, other parents are very quick to judge me when I state this fact. The response is usually a tightening of the lips, a shake of the head and a “but, don’t you think he’s missing out?” or some equally insane statement. If you just relaxed your lips, stopped shaking your head and closed your mouth, then we need to talk in a very serious way.

As a toddler, a big party would have been more for the adults. Consider the statement “Aw, look at all the cute little ones in their cute little pointy hats and their faces all smooshed with cake. Isn’t it precious?” That cute, precious, pointy party would have cost about $200 and he would have ended up with a bunch of presents that would have put people out of grocery money. For the $200, we could buy him presents and those people could buy their groceries. So, we chose to have small parties, spend less than $25 (usually) on a party for him, us, family and close friends and spend a bit on presents (not $200, for the record).

As he gets older, now 8, we still don’t do big parties. This year, we asked what he would like to do on his birthday. He chose to see a movie. That gets expensive with many people, so the compromise was that he could choose ONE friend to take to the movie and then we’d do the bells and whistles for them: ANYTHING they wanted from the snack bar and they got to pick any G rated movie they wanted to see. You would think they died and went to high fructose corn syrup heaven. Before the movie, they went to the McDonald’s and ate dinner and played in the playland for two hours. AJ said it was “the best birthday ever!” and so did his friend.

By keeping his party expectations low, we don’t have to worry about upsets. Sure, he like attending birthday parties, but he also is an introvert who likes a small get together, too. He’d rather have presents and get to do whatever he wants on his day than a 2 hour party.

Another family we know did something similar. They did the big Chuck-e-Cheese party, but they invited family and they allowed their child to choose one kid to come as a guest (AJ) and so they saved money on tokens and all the extras and the child still got the special feeling that a kid gets from doing all the birthday stuff at Chuck-e-Cheese.

To Jen, what about doing a lollipop lottery? Get some dum dums and whoever gets the dum dums with a mark on them gets to come to your 3-4 person party? To everyone else, I’m just glad I’m still worrying about this kind of thing instead of beer parties.

When the salesperson was ringing me up, she started trying to set up the phone. I told her not to worry about it because I wasn’t going to be using it as a pre-paid phone, but I was going to put my own SIM card in there. She got really quiet and sad that she would “have to pretend that I didn’t hear that.”

You’re going to pretend you didn’t hear that? Or what? Are you going to terminate your contract with me? At what cost? Unless you find a way to make phones indestructible, phones are going to break and things are going to happen and unless replacement policies get better, people are going to say “screw your new phones, I’m getting a used one until my 2 years is up.”

Recently, I did this when my LG Voyager just wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. There was nothing wrong with it other than I hated the phone. It wasn’t intuitive and the excessive amount of money I would need to pay for each and every application made me realize that it was just another cash cow for my phone carrier. I reluctantly went back to the blackberry, buttcalls and all. Frankly, I’ve never been happier in my life. The little Pink Pearl telephone I got off of craigslist is smaller than most blackberries and I feel bad that I didn’t listen to my friend, Clay, when he told me years ago that the pearl was the way to go. For having large man hands, my palms are surprisingly small and this is a nice fit for me.

However, if Verizon had suddenly made some snide comment that I could not use the pearl, which is one of their recognized phones or that they “hadn’t heard that I got it off of craigslist” I would have been inclined to shoot fire out of my mouth at the rep because a phone carrier may carry my service, but I’m not required to keep the same phone I bought with the plan and, if I were, I’d go elsewhere. If I wanted to buy a pay by the minute phone to stick a Sim card in (for carriers that use them), I should be able to do so with a rep that cheerfully offers to help me because this is like any other business and a paying customer is a paying customer.

Have these people never heard about “giving ‘em the pickle?” Giving ‘em the pickle is a customer service technique which means going above and beyond the call of duty to gain and keep customers. It’s explained on the linked website, but the key is that if you can make your customers happy by giving them pickles for their sandwiches, why would you deny them something so small? T-mobile, you were still making money from this? Why would you deny this person something so small or encourage your reps to make others feel bad based on what they afford to get by? Hopefully, someone out there is rethinking this policy because it seems like losing customers over pre-paid cells is a silly policy.

Remember my post on shoddy airline practices? Well, it’s not just US Airways. I’ve flown Delta many times in the past and have always had great customer service, but this policy is CRAZY. Delta is now going to charge $125 for bag 3 and $200 for bags 4-10 per flight.

According to http://consumerist.com:

Unfortunately for Bradley, the information is on Delta’s site, but it’s separated into a page by itself under the heading “excess baggage.” This is where you can find out what sort of gouging they’re going to do if you exceed the norm of 2 bags—and where it says that bag 3 will cost $125, and bags 4-10 will cost $200 each.

SAY WHAT? Ok, I rarely bring my 2 bags that I’m allowed. So, since I do that, can I get a bag credit to save up for times I might require extra bags? Or how about a cheaper ticket for those of us who don’t need bags? I understand the need to limit the number of bags as they can only hold so much stuff and there must be room for all the passengers as well as their goods, but the charges here are overboard. If people could afford those prices, would they really fly Delta or would they have their own personal jet for travel?

I’m not going to dwell on this or make this into a full blog entry. However, if I’m going to yell at US Airways, it’s only fair to yell at Delta, too, for shady, shoddy practices.

For those of you, like me, that are too lazy to click links, let me summarize this for you. A woman calls in sick to work because she’s too sick to look at a computer screen. A co-worker allegedly catches her surfing facebook via status updates or online status. Woman screams like a baby because they were shady and created a bogus facebook account for the sole purpose of catching her.

How much of all of this is true? Well, she cops to surfing facebook even though she was too sick to look at a computer at work. She says she did it from her bed on her iphone (thus rendering her still in the dark and able to function). I often surf the net while I’m sick and in bed, so I feel her pain. There isn’t anything on tv and my friends make me feel better. Unfortunately, you can’t clarify your sickness with an addendum that it’s because you are unable to look at a computer screen if you plan on spending your day surfing the net on your iphone.

This is me not being sympathetic: She deserved to be fired not because of what she did, but because she lied. If you feel like you have to lie about what’s going on, you are at the wrong place of employment. Don’t work with people you can’t trust. If your boss can’t understand that you are bored and at home and going out of your gourd because you are type A (like me), then, even in this economy, you may have to make a change.

But Jillian, what are you saying? I can’t just up and leave my job! Look, we make the choice to stay at a bad job. I’ve been there and done that and yes, it’s hard to leave. I ended up being really poor for a long time before it got better and had my family relying on me for the financial support. I’ve had jobs where I cried every day before work and I had nightmares at night about going back. When you’ve hit this point, your sanity is more important. Please don’t come back and blame me when you quit your job and have no money. That’s not the point of this post. Your decisions aren’t mine to make and I’m not in charge of your life. The point is that your happiness is your responsibility. I’m not responsible for what you do, nor are your bosses or coworkers.

Facebook all you want, but if you lie to your boss, you may get fired, which is the position of the boss in this particular article. He/she fired the lady due to “loss of trust.” Honesty really is the best policy. Or finding a new job.

Let me sum up the article for you. Dad gets sick with cancer. Grown daughter gives birth and decides HEY! Boob milk is full of immune boosting antioxidants that my dad should be drinking that will help him fight cancer. Dad agrees and drinks boob milk every day.

And, wait for it, he puts it on his cornflakes in the morning.

I want to believe I’m open-minded to unconventional treatments, but this feels overwhelming to me. This story ends on a hopeful note:

Hope at last
A month after starting the regimen, a scan of Tim’s cancer showed a slight, but distinct, improvement. Although doctors can’t say whether the breastmilk’s helped, Georgia says he’s brighter and has more energy.

She has promised to continue feeding Tim for as long as she can. ‘He has been having chemo as well as drinking the milk so there’s no way of really finding out if it is helping,’ Georgia explains. ‘I’m still feeding Monty so I feed him first, then I fill a bag for my dad. We’ll continue as long as I am breastfeeding.

‘It feels like I’m doing the most natural thing for the people I love. ‘I’ve been there when he has drunk it and it’s just not an issue. ‘Not many women can say their dad drinks their breastmilk. But I would do anything to give my dad more time with me, our family and Monty.’

And I am still processing it. If it were someone I loved, would I be ok with it? If it gave them a chance? What do you think?

This has led to almost a fanatic obsession with the online website The Consumerist. It not only informs me of anything shady that is going down, it gives me a healthy dose of anger and “holding the man down” mentality. I like it.

I was looking for a nice anger rush when I saw this post. It includes this quote:

Speaking to analysts during US Airways Group Inc.’s earnings call last week, president Scott Kirby said that airline clearly has made a lot of money by charging for checked bags.

But that doesn’t mean that Southwest isn’t benefiting from not charging the fees, he said.

“It’s possible that Southwest receives a very small market share from a number of carriers,” Kirby said.

Yep, that did it.

I don’t fly often, but I’m fixin’ to start. For those of you that don’t live in the South, that means I’m preparing myself to begin. I have to attend several conferences in the next year and this will require copious amounts of travel. I pack fairly light, but I know for sure that I am absolutely not paying for my bags. I’m just not. I already pay far too much for the convenience of going places and then get “fee’d” out the wazoo.

So, what I’m telling US Airways and all those other punks who think they are getting my cash and can charge me extra for stuff that they should be providing as part of what I’m already paying for: Forget it. I’ll take my business elsewhere and I’m not the only one. I will drive before I’ll pay you my money because I think that business ethics count. Some things are just the cost of doing business.

In the South, people say you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. And, Honey, you sure did miss the point.

Her theme for last week was, apparently, to show where her multitude of memorable guests are now. One, in particular, stood out to me and I feel the need to call out some behavior that had me shaking my head. Two words: Tonya Harding.

Whew. The cajones on that mama. I remember the situation with her and Nancy Kerrigan, and if you don’t, I’m sure wikipedia would be glad to enlighten you.

She began her talk with Oprah by saying how honored she was to be there and moved on with how she was the first American woman to do the triple axel. She just wants to move on from all of the bad publicity she received.

Fair enough. I think everyone deserves a second chance.

Tonya also mentioned that she is now back on top because she’s with Oprah now. Is that all it takes? Just to be in the presence of Oprah? Because murderers have been in the presence of Oprah. Are they grander because of it? I’m sensing the narcissism here. What I observed was no contrition on the part of Tonya Harding for any part she played in any downfall she’s had. In everything she’s done and all that she is, she plays the victim card for all it’s worth.

She attributes the negativity of her childhood to abuse, which her mother denies. I don’t know what happened and I won’t pass judgment on it. I’m merely establishing the pattern. She attributes the assault of Nancy Kerrigan all to a husband who was verbally abusive of her and says that it was his will to do it because he thought he could “gain more business from it.” It didn’t make sense to Oprah and it doesn’t make sense to me. I’ve always thought she lied about her involvement in the matter (she said that she had knowledge AFTER the attack and didn’t say anything for fear that she would be harmed), but now I’m convinced of it. She played the victim at the Olympics in regards to faulty gear when it was her job as the athlete to make sure her gear was in working order. And she’s playing the victim now when she talks about how people only remember her for the bad things in her life.

Look, I don’t hold what happened to you as a child against you, but who held a gun to your head for the multiple reality shows you did that put you in the “bad girl” light? You can’t have it both ways, Tonya. You are either the bad girl or the girl done wrong, but you can’t make money from it and then deny it later and say you are being unfairly labeled.

When Oprah asked if Tonya would apologize now, she said no and claimed it was because she’d already done that in a face-to-face setting and that it was not well received. I agree that you cannot control how someone handles what you choose to do. You have the choice how you will act in response to that and Tonya responded in a typically classless way by calling Nancy Kerrigan out on it on Oprah. It went on and on and on and by the end I decided to just delete the episode because I know when enough is enough.

Who’s the victim here? Anyone that believes people that sell snake oil. I’m not buying.