although I work, my job aint the most steadiest of income. in other words, Id starve in the winter if I had to go it alone. luckily, I dont starve, I mostly stay within reach of the bills, and I wait (very impatiently) for warm weather so as to earn some freakin cash.

sometimes I get inside work in the snowy months. not this year. so I went to heap for help with heating this place (haha, an unintentional alliteration...shoulda used house instead of place, tho). I have a woodburner, but I need back-up, so I use the propane furnace for those mornings when the fire has burned-off overnight and the house is chilly. by the time I get the fire realit (realighted? maybe a simple relit?) the propane has the chill under control. then I can set back and read my book (or whatever Im doing...) in cozy wood supplied heat. yum, can I get a witness

but, heap is 3 months behind. the three offices (local and state level) Ive called all say the same thing: "ummm, yes I see your file blahblah but we cant blahblah three months blahblah sorry you're cold blah call back..."

thanks.

but try owing money, which I do: some arrears Ive almot paid-off. I managed to get $150 behind and got a summons.

thanks

I tried in mid january to get it under control (i.e., out of court) with a few phonecalls.

"Nope, sorry, we're going to continue with this, mister mcgee. you're three payments late with another payment due soon"

thanks for telling me what I already knew.

but I followed the call a day later with $200 in the mail, and waited. called friday and still the lady wouldnt back down. I was going to court. and I dont wanna, know what I mean? shit, Im caught-up, (thank god for sisters with flowershops, I made a bit of cash with valentines...delivering, helping the mad hustle at the shop, etc. (oh, an aside I think is funny/sad. a woman came-in, ordered a dozen red roses delivered. I noticed her, knew she worked at a bank up town. she'd ordered the flowers delivered to herself. I handed them to her...she acted surprised (she didnt remember seeing me at the shop) and put the card in her purse real fast. I could here the convo in my head as I drove away: oh he shouldnt have and more along those lines. maybe she did have a sognificant other and for some reason had to pick her own flower, or she played it off, pretending to have someone. I dont know, thought ya might like the story or I wouldnt'a wrote it all out.)

so heap is 3 months behind helping me heat my house and thats okay, but when I am, all hell breaks loose.

to finish about the 2nd phonecall, after I damn near cried over the phone, she finally let me slide, saying if Im even a minute late with payments, Ill go back to court and--from the sound of glee in her voice--face a firing squad.
sheesh...





so heres some odd news, c/p'ed from some yahoo site:


Lead Story: Murder got Paul Powell life in prison -- but taunting the prosecutor got him the death penalty.

In all likelihood, convicted murderer Paul Powell would have been sentenced to life in prison for his 1999 crime, but he could not resist gratuitously ridiculing the prosecutor. Powell's original sentence of death was overturned because of a technicality in Virginia law: The "aggravated" circumstance in a murder that warrants the death penalty must be committed against the actual murder victim (whereas the prosecutor had proved only that Powell had also raped the victim's sister). Powell assumed that the prohibition against "double jeopardy" thus ruled out the death penalty and so decided to gloat, calling the prosecutor "stupid" and taunting him with details of his crimes. For the first time, Powell admitted that he had also raped the murder victim. That was evidence of a new aggravated circumstance (i.e., no "double jeopardy"), and the prosecutor obtained a death sentence. In January 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Powell's appeal. [CNN, 1-25-10]





Can't Possibly Be True

A Toronto restaurant, Mildred's Temple Kitchen, announced that its Valentine's Day promotion this year would not just be a romantic dinner but would also include an invitation for couples to have sex in the restrooms. Toronto Public Health officials appeared unconcerned, as long as there was no sex in food-preparation areas and as long as the restrooms were clean. "Bodily fluids" were not a concern, said one unruffled health official, because after all, that's what restrooms are for. [Toronto Star, 2-3-10]







Women's rights activists in Uganda finally got the attention of the Western press in December, when London's The Independent verified the plight of Jennipher Alupot, who periodically for seven years had been forced to breastfeed her husband's hunting dogs as she was nursing the couple's own children. Farmer Nathan Awoloi of Pallisa explained that his dogs needed to eat, and since he was forced to send Jennipher's family two milk cows in order to win her hand, he felt his demands were reasonable. [The Independent, 12-31-09]








In January, the Justice Department's Inspector General released a long-anticipated report detailing the FBI's post-9/11 corner-cutting in obtaining individual Americans' phone records. Federal law permits such acquisition only with a "terrorism" subpoena ("National Security Letter") unless the FBI documents emergency ("exigent") circumstances to a telecom company. The Inspector General found that, from 2002-2006, the FBI had representatives of three telecom companies set up in the FBI unit so that agents could request phone records orally, without documentation, and in some cases merely by writing the requested phone numbers on Post-it Notes and sticking them on the telecom employees' workstations. Some of the acquired records were uploaded to the FBI's database. [New York Times, 1-21-10]








Inexplicable

Police are still baffled by how Gregory Denny, 37, was able to "deport" Cherrie Belle Hibbard from her home in Hemet, Calif., in January back to her native Philippines. According to Hemet police, Denny, with a gun and fake U.S. Marshal's badge and shirt, knocked on Hibbard's door and convinced her that he was there to escort her to the airport and out of the country and that Hibbard's husband had to buy her the ticket. Denny then accompanied Hibbard through airport security and put her onto a flight. Upon questioning by police later, Denny apparently remained in character, continuing to insist that he is a Marshal. Denny was arrested on suspicion of kidnapping, impersonating a peace officer and several other charges. [Los Angeles Times, 2-4-10]












Buffalo, N.Y., television meteorologist Mike Cejka was arrested in December after a brief police chase and charged with trespassing after he was spotted at 4 a.m. tinkering with the covering of a motorcycle in a stranger's yard. Cejka told police he was on his way to work at the station and had merely stopped to admire the motorcycle he had remembered seeing in that yard over the summer. He was wearing a dress shirt and shoes and leather chaps topped by a pair of sweat shorts. [Niagara Gazette, 1-5-10]









Unclear on the Concept

A 27-year-old man was arrested for trespassing in January in Seattle's Lusty Lady peep-show arcade, whose layout is a strippers' dance stage surrounded by private viewing stalls for customers. According to police, the man climbed from his stall, through a ceiling panel, and navigated the overhead crawl space, which only allowed him to peep at the strippers from a different angle. [Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 1-26-10]








In December, British Columbia's District of Sechelt Council approved a bylaw making it illegal for licensed dogs to chase squirrels, seagulls and other wild animals. The councillors added a defense of "provocation" but left it undefined, which might be especially problematic in instances in which the dog is the only witness to the alleged provocation. [Coast Reporter (Sechelt), 12-24-09]








The Continuing Crisis

In February, the Board of Trustees of Saugatuck Township, Mich., scheduled a May referendum asking voters for an increase in the property tax in order to cover unanticipated new expenses. The budget overrun was due to the mounting costs of defending lawsuits by people and companies complaining that the Township's property taxes are too high. [Grand Rapids Press, 2-4-10]









University of Montreal School of Social Work professor Simon Louis Lajeunesse, intending to research the effects of pornography on men's relationships with women and needing a control group for comparison, advertised in the local community for up to 20 nonusers of pornography, but he was forced to radically alter his research model when no one signed up. Concluded Lajeunesse, in December: "Guys who do not watch pornography do not exist." [Montreal Gazette, 12-4-09]










Least Competent Criminals

Poorly Conceived: Travis Copeland, 19, bolting from a courtroom in Waukegan, Ill., in January, ran down a hallway and then lowered his shoulder and thrust himself at a window, intending to crash through it to freedom. Courthouse windows are bulletproof, and Copeland merely bounced off, staggered away and fell to the floor in pain. [Daily Herald (Arlington Heights, Ill.), 1-15-10]






Chamil Guadarrama, 30, was arrested in Springfield, Mass., in February after a store security guard spotted him with 75 bottles of lotion stuffed down his pant legs (which were tied off at the ankles), making him look like a nearly immobile Michelin Man. Said a cop: "(We) could not fit Mr. Guadarrama into the cruiser because ... he could not bend over." [The Republican (Springfield), 2-4-10]








The Jesus and Mary World Tour (Recent Appearances)

Rathkeale, Ireland, July (Mary on a tree stump). Apia, Samoa, September (Mary on the outside wall of a church). Velyky Berezny, Ukraine, September (Jesus on the outside wall of a factory). Ravena, N.Y., September (Jesus in a coffee stain on a mason jar). Bishopville, S.C., October (Jesus on a kitchen curtain). Southampton, England, November (Jesus in a flatbread at an Indian restaurant). Methuen, Mass., November (Jesus in a stain on the bottom of an iron). Florissant, Mo., December (Jesus on a splotch in a sink). Jonesborough, Tenn., November (Jesus, morning after morning, in window condensation on a pickup truck). (Apparently, only the three foreign sightings have drawn significant pilgrimage to the sites.) [Rathkeale: Irish Times, 7-9-09] [Apia: Agence France-Presse, 9-17-09] [Velyky Berezny: Daily Telegraph (London), 9-17-09] [Ravena: Times Union (Albany), 6-17-09] [Bishopville: WLTX-TV (Columbia, S.C.), 10-8-09] [Southampton: Daily Echo (Redbridge, England), 11-11-09] [Methuen: Eagle-Tribune (North Andover, Mass.), 11-27-09] [Florissant: KTVI-TV (St. Louis), 12-16-09] [Jonesborough: New York Daily News-AP, 11-4-09]















A News of the Weird Classic (May 2003)

Least Competent Circus Knife-Thrower: News of the Weird reported twice on staffing problems of British circus knife-thrower Jayde Hanson. One assistant walked off the job in 2001 after being nearly hit in the foot, which would have been her third wound that season (equaling the number of injuries a previous girlfriend had suffered as Hanson's assistant before she quit the year before). In April 2003, Hanson was performing with his new girlfriend, Yana Rodianova, 22, live on Britain's "This Morning" television show, displaying his world-record form as a speed knife-thrower, when one knife hit Rodianova in the head, drawing blood. [Reuters, 4-10-03]











hahaha.

somewhere in this house I have a lamp. it is a very old and valuable lamp. it is now for sale, all I gotta do is find it. that is today's mission.

cya