Spam Alert

So I got an email today from "Yahoo! Inc©." Here's what it said:

Dear User,

We are sorry to inform you that we are currently working on securing our server, during this process account which is not manually verified by us will be deleted, Please confirm and submit your information for manual verification by one of our customer care.
Information which is to be provided is below:
User Name:
User Id:
Password:
Date Of Birth:
Country (At Sign up):
Upon confirmation of information from you, we will manually verify your Yahoo! Account and reserve it not to be deleted, We are sorry for any inconveniences this might have cause providing your information over the email. Warning!!! Account owner that refuses to update his/her account after two weeks of receiving this warning will lose his or her account permanently.
____________________________

Copyright © 2009 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved. Copyright/IP Policy Terms of Service Guide to Online Security NOTICE: We collect personal information on this site.
To learn more about how we use your information, see our Privacy Policy.

So I wonder how many people fall for this crap. I mean, they went through a lot of trouble, b/c their email address is alert@yahoo-inc.com. But at the same time, they couldn't be bothered to proofread their email. I do like the way they are up front about collecting personal information.

I think I should start a spam business. I can spam people asking for money. Hell, I could probably be totally honest and I'd still manage to make a tidy profit. You know, it could be something like this:

Greetings,

My name is Carole Callaghan, and I am an attorney, working for the State of Texas. While I love being an attorney, dedicating my life to being a public servant comes at a price. State attorneys are vastly underpaid, especially considering the amount of schooling that is required of attorneys. I have a husband and two beautiful children, who depend on me for moral and financial support. Unfortunately, I am not sure that I can afford to continue devoting my life to public service and still maintain an acceptable standard of living for my beautiful family.

If you would be willing to assist me, I am sure I can continue the important work that I currently do, keeping you and your family safe from the horrific criminals that plague our state. I want to keep my children safe...don't you?


Please send money now. Cash, paypal and cashier checks accepted. Please no personal checks. Send money to:

Carole Callaghan
Mystreet
Mycity, TX

Thank you, and God bless.

Twitter

So I signed up for twitter a while back, but seriously, I don't get it. I mean, who really wants to know what I am doing at every second of the day? Hell, most people don't want to know anything I ever do. And I really have no desire to see everything that anyone else does either. Frankly, I think it would be exhausting to constantly be updating my every move...hmm...now that I think about it, I don't really do all that much. I guess it wouldn't be that hard. But still, it would greatly cut into my free time. I mean, let's face it, there's only 8 hours in a workday (really, there's 9, but who's counting). Do I really want to spend 4 of those telling everyone what I'm doing? Wouldn't most of my twitter posts have to say "I'm twittering"? If I want to keep my fb page updated, blog, IM my online friends, live chat with my work friends, watch shows I missed, and eat lunch, I simply don't have time to twitter at work. And frankly, I'm not willing to give up any of those things (well, maybe talking with my work friends...I mean seriously, who cares about them?).

So I deleted my twitter account. I know, I know...you're crushed. You'll just have to live with only learning about what's happening in my life via my blog.

But, if any of you have twitter accounts, I would like to hear from you. Do you like it? Do people care what you're doing? Tell me.

Damn!

So I washed my car today. Turns out I did get hail damage after all. Stupid ping pong table! Anyone know a good body shop? There's only a few places where it got dings.

Back-alley waxing...literally and figuratively

So a friend of mine posted an article about New Jersey's recent attempts to ban brazillian waxing. For those of you who are not well-versed in such matters, a brazillian traditionally means you take it all off. You know the saying...smooth as a baby's bottom.

Anyway, the good people (and by good people, I mean elected officials) of New Jersey are apparently afraid that salons are not properly triaing thier employees, and there's a risk of injury. I'm pretty sure that when you ask someone hot-glue a cloth strip to your girlie parts and then yank it off, you're aware there may be injury. I also find it ironic that this is the social issue the legislators of Jersey decided to tackle.

At any rate, you know if its made illegal, jersey girls of all ages are going to have to resort to getting their back-alleys waxed in back-alley waxes. Don't these legislators realize that bushes need to be trimmed? After all, it is the garden state. Pruning is in their blood.

Archives

So I am a lazy person. I know, I know...it's shocking, but true. And because I am lazy, I don't always want to come up with something to write about.

Thankfully, I used to be less lazy, and so my old blog if full of insightful, witty posts (shut up, and let me live in my little fantasy world, ok?). So what I am going to do is start moving my old posts from that blog (which I no longer use), to this one. If you read the old blog (Kathy, Mark), then sorry...you'll be forced to suffer without new Carole's Blog material when I do this. Hopefully, I'll still have enough new thoughts to keep the blog somewhat current.

So without further ado...the first (well, second if you count the parking garage one from the other day) installment of Carole's old posts (followed by a picture of last night's hail):

Yeah..um...

So I think there must be something wrong with me. I have been watching a lot of Curious George lately (nothing wrong with that...I have a three-year-old). The thing is, I think I have a crush on the man with the yellow hat. See, I told you, there is something wrong with me. But let me at lest try to defend myself.

1) He's single

2) He's loaded. He has a nice apartment in downtown New York, and a nice house in the country.

3) He has a nice car. It's a sweet convertible.

4) His clothes always match.

5) He is clearly very caring. He takes damn good care of that monkey.

6) He's cultural. I can't tell for sure what he does for a living (and I haven't seen the movie, so if they say in that, let me know), but he's friends with lots of cool scientist-type people. He likes going to the museum, and he seems to be somehow affiliated with it (he gives speeches there and whatnot).

7) He's got a lot of patience. He didn't even get mad at George when he accidentally bought 100 dozen donuts.

8) He has a good sense of humor.

9) His apartment is always very clean.

10) Oh shit...is he gay? Nah, that would be too much for PBS to tackle. So, tada! He's straight!

So seriously. I think I may put him on my list. That way, just in case he turns out to be a real person, and he happens to run into me while visiting a friend in Austin, and he happens to be straight, it's not cheating.

Yeah, there's something wrong with me.

Here's the hail pictures. The first two were taken during the storm, the last two were taken after it stopped raining (about 30 minutes after the hail hit). The biggest hail I saw was about 2", but I didn't go traipsing around looking for bigger pieces. The news showed people with tennis-ball-sized pieces.

Tint is good

So here's a couple of before tint/after tint pics of my car. Don't worry...I'll get bored with talking about it soon. I promise.

It's really not that hard, people

I was going to write a post about people not being able to park between the lines at work, when I realized that once, a while back, I blogged about people not being able to park between the lines at work. But I did that on my other blog, which I no longer post to anymore, and you people don't read. So here's my entry from that blog. It still expresses my sentiments quite well:

If you can't park between the f'ing lines, don't park there! It's really not difficult. And if you have a small car, park in the damn small car spots. Don't take a big spot, and then bitch when a big car parks in a small spot. Oh, and seriously, who the hell designs these garages? Do they f'ing live in Europe? We're in Texas for Christ sake! EVERYONE has big cars. Don't make a parking lot with 50% small spots, because 95% of the cars won't fit in them. One other thing. Just because you drive a porche, doesn't mean you get two spots. Your shit smells just as bad as everyone elses. In fact, I think it actually smells worse. I hear pate does that to you. So park your pretty, fast, mid-life-crisis-mobile on the damn street, or leave it at home, or park in a damn small spot like the rest of the plebeians you work with. You are not better than us because of your car, you're dumber for wasting your money on a car that you can never utilize. I guarantee you, you aren't pushing the limits of your super-fast race car on Mopac on the way home from work. All you are doing is fucking up your suspension as you unsuccessfully attempt to dodge potholes while making an ass of yourself as you try to get the attention of the 20-year-old bimbo in daddy's Mercedes (who, incidentally, is too busy texting her girlfriends while driving 40 miles an hour in the fast lane to notice the balding, overweight geezer giving her fuck-me looks).

But I digress. Learn to park in ONE spot.

Words cannot describe it

So I got my new car. It is...well...orgasmic. I don't know if I can describe how much I love it. But I'm gonna try.

No I'm not. I can't. It's just so freakin' cool! But I'll give an example of it's coolness. I was driving to work this morning, going down Old Spicewood, which is a really curvy road. Unfortunately, there was a dufus in front of me going literally 10 mph under the speed limit. I decided I needed to get around him, but I'm not stupid enough to pass him on Old Spicewood. There's too many curves, and it's a pretty narrow road. So when I got to the cut-through that goes under 360, I took it, hoping I would end up in front of him when I got on the other side. The cut through is pretty curvy too, and the car handled like a dream (compared to my Jeep...don't get me wrong, it's no race car). When you turn on Spicewood from the cut-through, there is immediately a huge hill. I could floor it in my Jeep and maintain some sort of speed, but it was never pretty. In the Maxima...I just gave it a little gas, and I was cruising along...accelerating up the hill (until I came up on the next slow truck...what's with these people, anyway?).

Needless to say, I am going to have a LOT of fun driving it. Here's a couple of pics of it. They were taken before I got the windows tinted. It looks even better now. Unfortunately, I was so busy yesterday, that I didn't get a chance to take any pics of it before it got dark. I'll try to tonight.

You people suck

Ok, not you. The people who use my bathroom. You know, the ones who don't wash their hands unless cornered. You suck. Now, not only do you not wash your hands, and go pee in the stall right next to mine. Now you have added hanging out and chatting with your friends in the bathroom. The bathroom is NOT the place to chat it up! Let's look at the facts:

1. People have to go to the bathroom for 4 reasons: a) wash their hands, b) pee, c) take a dump, d) other feminine hygiene reasons. That's it. There's no other reason to be in there.
2. When a person is engaged in any of b, c or d, above, she would prefer to be alone. When engaged in c, many women (Yes, Rebecca...I'm talking about you) (and men too...think shitbreak from American Pie), refuse to, er, perform for an audience.
3. The bathrooms stink (especially the work bathrooms). After all, there's a lot of 1c happening there in any given day, and 1d doesn't produce fantastic results either.

So, knowing that these three things are true, why, why, why would you stand around in there chatting it up? Don't get me wrong, I understand the idle conversation of two people that go in together, do what needs to be done, and then leave together. What I don't get is the people that go in, see someone they know, and stop to have a 10 minute conversation with them. GET THE HELL OUT! Go talk in the hall or your office---or better yet, IM one another. I don't even want to hear your voice, much less hear it while I'm dropping a deuce!

By the way, one of the women who is guilty of this on my floor is the same woman who refuses to wash her hands. I can't imagine being as socially inept as her...on second thought, I probably was on Saturday night, but I was totally drunk, so I had an excuse. This bitch does this kind of thing sober. That makes her vile and repugnant, and she should be shot.

I don't make the rules, I just follow them

Ok, that's not really true. I make far too many rules. Just ask Kelivn. At any rate, this time, I'm just going to do what I'm told:

We have been working to refinance our house for a couple of months now. There are so many people refinancing that there's a backlog, and it takes far longer than it otherwise would. During this time, I have also been looking for a new car. Mine is getting pretty old. It's almost 10, and it has about 115,000 miles on it. But we wanted to wait until after the refinancing was done, so we wouldn't feel the pain of the car payment so much.

I found the car for me. It's a nissa maxima. It's kind of expensive, but Kelvin agreed that if I keep it for a decade like I did this one, it's worth it to spend a little more. So I've been waiting.

And waiting...


And waiting.

Today, was the big day. We finally were going close, and I was thrilled. On the way to the closing, I heard this loud noise, as if somehting had hit the side of my car, or I had blown a tire. I didn't feel anything, and the car was driving fine, so I ignored it...until a few minutes later, when the passenger window started falling down into the door.

So, we go to closing, and everything goes just fine. When we got home after work, Kelvin went out and took my door apart to see if he could fix the window. He came in and said he couldn't. Then he says "I guess you'll just have to get a new car."

WOOT! Go crappy window!

After

The stages of Emily's hair:

Before:

During:

After:

We've all done it before, right?

So here's what happens when a four-year-old gets scissors and a few minutes without adult supervision:



While I'm none too happy with her, I will say this. It looks cute. Well, let me rephrase. I think it will look cute when it's trimmed up properly. I'll post an update with a picture of her once we get it cut.

On a different note, I had a party last night. I didn't get as many people there as I would have liked, but I didn't give a whole lot of notice. But it was really fun. At least what I remember of it was. I have a little bit of a problem with wine. For some reason, I don't realize how drunk I'm getting. Now usually, I can tell by how much I've drank, but last night, everyone was drinking from the same bottles, so I couldn't really tell how much I'd had. Clearly, I need to learn to keep track.

So, if you were at my party, I apologize for whatever I may or may not have said or done. I hope you had a good time. And thanks to everyone who brought food. It was all really yummy!

Wow.

So it's only Tuesday night, and I have already had an amazing week. Monday I won a big case, one that I wasn't at all sure I would win. Then today, I had oral argument in the 5th Circuit. The people in my office have oral argument all the time, and this was my third, but I am still nervous as all get out when I stand up in front of the court. Today, I could very literally feel my heart pounding when they called my case. Luckily, the facts and law were on my side, and by the time it was my turn to talk, I was practically jumping out of my chair. There were about 3 times when a judge asked opposing counsel a question, and I just wanted to jump up and down and shout "pick me! pick me! I know the answer!" Luckily for me (and my boss, and his boss), I managed to control myself, and limit my akward moments to just one...when I flung my pen during my argument. At least I didn't put anyone's eye out.

And now, here's another couple of cute unsolicited pictures of my kids.

This is awesome

I always tease my friend, Lark about the absurdly gay statements he makes. Here's today quote of the day from him. We were talking about a bike race he does every year.

"Gay Ted wants me to join his team."

Ya gotta love this guy.

I'm a good mom

So we all know that's not true. Well, those of you in Dubai and India may not actually know it, but if you've actually read my blog (and aren't simply fishing for addresses to spam), I bet you suspect it. Generally, I parent by determining what's easiest. I find it to be far more efficient than doing what's "right."

But yesterday, I actually was a good parent. My daughter is 4, and she has some friends at school that she would like to stay friends with, even after she goes off to kindergarten. So I stopped and swapped phone numbers with one of the moms yesterday. It was almost like I was a real suburbanite. Now our kids can have playdates, while we talk about...well hell, I have no idea what suburbanite moms talk about while their kids play. It's not that I want to hang out with these people who have been forced upon me based on nothing other than the proximate age and location of their children. I'd much rather play Grand Theft Auto or drink a beer with Kelvin. But I guess I can try to get to know them. Maybe I'll luck out, and one of them will be into drunken gaming like me.

Is it appropriate to get mildy innebirated on a playdate? I think that would make it easier on everyone.

Oh, here's some pics of the kids. As you can tell, they like to stick their tongues out at me.

Oral Argument Update

Great...my boss just sent out an email to my entire division reminding everone that I have oral argument next week..."Watching argument is a great experience and I highly recommend it." Thanks, boss!

My only saving grace is that there are two arguments (both involving our office) on that day, and I am second. So hopefully people will go to the first, and leave before mine.

Ok, I have to go prepare now...

One week to go

So I have oral argument in the Fifth Circuit next week. As always, I'm nervous. When I get nervous, I tend to overprepare, which I am doing yet again. The problem with me is that overpreparation doesn't help. I still get up there and am dumbfounded by the experience. Of course, I have only had two other oral arguments, so I guess that's ok.

Some people say I should stand up there and think about them all being naked to calm myself down. But frankly, that's not such a pleasant thought. I mean, let's face it...circuit judges are generally speaking...well...past their prime. You don't get appointed to a federal appellate court by graduating from law school, or looking good in a black robe (although with Clinton, that may have helped your odds). I think I'd rather not visualize that particular scenario.

Anyway, this argument is actually happening in Austin. That's good and bad. Good because I don't have to travel, and deal with packing boxes, being away from home, etc. Bad because my whole damn office can just waltz on over there to "support" me. And by support, I mean mortify. It's one thing to have the potential to screw up in front of opposing counsel, and three angry republicans (I can say that because I am one). Its a whole other ball of wax to eat crow in front of a room full of my co-workers. Hell, they may hear me and never want to assign me an oral argument again.

My goal for this argument is to either not have anything written about it at all (other than the unanimous opinion of the Court affirming the judgement of the court below), or to at least have something better than "young, blond, talked well but wasn’t sharp legally." It's an admirable goal, I think. Don't you?