| Can I Refuse This Offer? |
May 2, 2007 Can I Refuse This Offer? Do you remember when I wrote about my email windfall a few months ago? (If You Believe That, I have Some Swampland to Sell You.) Well, can you believe that I’ve hit the jackpot again? Wow. I just received an email job offer that I’m not sure I can refuse. I can’t believe my good fortune. It came from: FIELDCREST MARKETING COMPANY PLC. Import & Export Co Ltd (CHINA) And the position is: FINANCIAL MANAGER, esponsible for payment from the customers and financial means. Hey, I’ve always wanted to be esponsible for payment from financial means. Wow, here are the requirements. You wouldn’t believe how qualified I am! The requirements for the interested candidate are as follow: - Being energetic, responsible, honest and industrious - Being under 80 years old and 18yrs and above - Having a few (1-2) spare hours a day) - Having a phone house/mobile phone - Having a passport or Drivers license (any means of identification) Once you are able to attribute to your self and meet the entire above listed requirement, you should apply for an offered position. Listen, I can certainly attribute my self and meet the entire above listed requirement. I am energetic, responsible, honest, and industrious. I am under 80 years and above 18 years. I have (1-2) spare hours a day, for sure. I have a phone. I have drivers license, and I can identify myself. So, you probably want to know what this company sells. Aren’t I lucky? They told me all about it in their email. Our company remains one of the most successful distributors, manufacturer and exporter of a wide range of car audio, car video,car speakers and automobile related ents, as well as a large importer of AC, fridge compressors, pumps and valves, machine tools, and cast irons such as gray iron and alloys. Now, I have to say just how scintillating it is to think that I would be part of a company that distributes ents and cast irons. Wow. I might be able to add to my job attributes by explaining all of my experience with a cast iron, wood burning stove. Well, the email ended with an opportunity for me to send them my personal information. I’m just so beside myself that I can’t do it yet. Just think. I could send my personal information to some scam artist in who-knows-what country? Aren’t I just the luckiest person in the world? Seriously, who sends these things? And why? And does anybody really reply? Like I’ve said before, stupid is as stupid does. If anybody replies to an email like this, they are. . .well. . .stupid.
May 6, 2007 Are you Scatterbrained or is it Alzheimer’s? You know how it feels when you’ve just finished a shopping trip on Friday night at the Super Walmart? When you’re kicking yourself for thinking you could survive the crush of people who are just as tired as you are—and still maintain your sanity? And just when you think you’ve escaped without hurting yourself or anyone else, you get outside only to realize you can’t remember where you parked your car? Then, when you finally find your car, you can’t find your keys? I’ve got good news for you. This doesn’t happen because you’re stupid. You’re not developing Alzheimer’s. And it’s not because you’ve lost brain cells from talking on a cell phone. A new study finds that your brain isn't filtering thoughts well. The research indicates that memory capacity doesn’t necessarily depend on how much stuff you can cram into your brain. It’s more like, if you can just avoid taking in so much from around you, you’ll be able to remember more. Study leader, Edward Vogel of the University of Oregon, says, Being 'scatterbrained' is often a symptom of a hectic modern life in which we are often overcommitted, overworked, and inundated with information. Given such an environment, it would not be surprising if many of our important cognitive control processes become overtaxed and less efficient. Attentional training may be able to improve one's ability to bounce irrelevant information from awareness. In other words, we need a bouncer in our head to kick out the stuff we don’t need to be thinking about. I’d call it over stimulation. As an aside, it’s interesting to note that highly imaginative people tend to be more scatterbrained than others. Why, they didn’t say. However, from the reference point of a writer, who (obviously) spends a great deal of time being creative, I sometimes have so many thoughts in my head, I don't even hear people talking to me. So, Vogel’s team is working on attention training, which works best on children, although adults can be taught with certain video games. (Go figure.) Anyway, here’s why you couldn’t find your car in the parking lot. It’s the end of the week. You’re tired. You’re thinking about: the weekend; whatever activities you have planned; what you need to buy; how many other dang cars are in the parking lot; how many people will be standing in the lines; why didn’t you shop earlier in the week; did you bring the checkbook; the idiot who just almost rear-ended you car; the weather; everything that went wrong that week; and will you get home in time to watch the season premiere of Monk. So, you get out of your car and don’t think about where you put the keys. You walk to the store, never giving a thought to where you parked because you’re still dreading the crowd and kicking yourself for not being organized enough to come at a better time. Basically, you’re overwhelmed by all your thoughts. Getting rid of the extraneous ones will help. I guess my only question is, if I need my imagination because I have to be creative, will this kind of training affect that, and, in turn, affect my writing? I can see me now explaining to my dear editor Susan, hey, I installed a bouncer in my head and now I can’t write anymore. Sorry. But at least I can find my car. May 13, 2007 Last night I awoke to find a stranger in my bed. And, now that I have your attention, it gets worse. This stranger had eight legs and was using all of them to climb up my body as I slept. The only reason I discovered its unwelcome company was that I was getting up for my traditional middle of the night trip to the bathroom. Yep. Think about it. (Begin obligatory horror movie music.) A spider. Crawling on me. Up my body. In the dark. At night. When I’m asleep. (End obligatory horror movie music.) I can only think of a few things that make me feel creepier. One of them would be a bigger spider crawling up me when I’m asleep in the dark at night. But, I live in an old house. I’m pretty sure there are things living in the walls here that would make me scream if I saw them. Right now seems to be spider birthing month or something. They are all over the house, so I really shouldn’t be surprised they’re trying to sleep with me. Their mothers probably kicked them out or something. I’ve found them in the shower, in my office. . .in every room in the house. Fortunately, the ones that are the most dangerous aren’t likely to be keeping me company while I snooze. Like the brown recluse, whose name says it all. They like to hide in dark places, like still corners of closets and attics waiting for the unsuspecting person to reach in. That’s when they take a bite. I haven’t quite figured out why God made spiders. That’s a mystery I’m waiting to have solved when I get to heaven. Meantime, I’m checking out the ceiling, floor, bed, and walls before I go to sleep tonight. Not that that will help. I think they hide until the lights go out. . .and then. . . (Begin obligatory horror movie music.) May 28, 2007
My regular readers will probably remember when I wrote about toilet
swimming white rats. (Hey,
What's that Thing Doing the Backstroke in my Toilet?) That
blog article might have caused some of you to pause before using the Not that I want to bring back bad memories for anyone, but I ended that article with a reference about Gambian rats in the Florida Keys. Well, guess what? I ran across a recent article about them. It seems that wildlife officials are trying desperately to wipe out a colony of the African rats that could threaten crops and other animals in Grassy Key, Florida. These rats aren't a joking matter. They can grow to be as big as cats. A former exotic pet breeder brought them into the country, bred them, and then allowed some of them to escape. As we all know, it takes just two to begin a whole new colony. Officials fear the rats will escape, moving into the Florida mainland where they will destroy the fragile ecosystem. In Zimbabwe, where they live naturally, ravenous Gambian rats are blamed for damaging nut and young pea crops. On the off chance you travel to Grassy Key, you’ll recognize the rats because they can weigh six to nine pounds, with body shades ranging from brown to gray. They have large ears, black, beady eyes, hamster-like pouched facial cheeks, sharp teeth and distinctive long, stringy and white-marked tails. Somehow, any comparison to hamsters seems wrong.
As an aside, I wonder if Mr. Witmer has ever lived with a large parrot? Talk about messy. Anyway, Gambian rats supposedly carry monkey pox, but so far, the CDC has found no signs of the disease in the carcasses of the rats. "We're lucky that's the case," Witmer said. "They sure can bite." One wonders how he knows. May 23, 2007 I’ve been in Colorado at a writers’ conference. I had planned to blog from there, and loaded FrontPage onto my laptop, along with what I thought were my website files. But, when I got there, I discovered that my files weren’t the right ones. They were three months out of date. Not only that, but I couldn’t get FrontPage to connect to the internet from my laptop. I was frustrated, to say the least, because I wanted to post pictures each day. Oh, well. I returned this morning at almost three. Yes, that’s AM. So, I’m going to be brief. I just want to let you know that I’m a criminal-in-the-making. A TSA guy found contraband in my carry on luggage. You’ll be shocked, so get ready. I had a sealed bottle of water. I know! I know! Probable cause for never being able to clear a background check ever again. But I didn’t do it on purpose. I wasn’t being sneaky. I didn’t know it was there. I’M TELLING THE TRUTH! Really. Who can remember whether she packed three or four bottles in her bag that morning to go to the Rocky Mountain State Park before driving to the airport that afternoon? So, there I was, thinking I was a really good girl when I threw away three of bottles (two empty), only to have the humorless man at the scanning machine yell for a baggage check guard. That’s because there was a fourth bottle lurking in the depths of my bag under my camera, jewelry case, magazines, computer cords, and a book. While the one guy yanks my stuff out, Mr. If I Smile, My Face Will Fall Off, keeps eyeing me with that copish look that says, Hey, you’re a total moron, which he thinks I am. That’s because there’s a movie about contraband water bottles playing on screens all around us that we’re forced to watch for the whole forty minutes we’re waiting to get our baggage screened. I have an opinion about the whole water bottle thing. I think it’s unreasonable not to allow people to carry on SEALED bottles of water. And I wonder if it’s just another way to force us to buy things at exorbitant prices from the stores inside the airport. I think the bottle I bought was $1.75. Anyway, I’m home. Safe. Tired. And ready to write again.
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