GotoQuiz can GotoHell

I spent a good 2 hours yesterday coming up with what I thought might be a fun little Kern County factoid Quiz. Rather than just type it in here I tired using this Go To Quiz website, which was fine until I was done and all I wanted was the damn HTML code to embed on my blog and it kept making me jump through stupid hoops. Seriously, I was forced to write two paragraphs describing the quiz and why it is SO important, Instead I wrote a bunch of crap about how I was being forced to write the paragraphs and when I finally submitted it STILL got rejected and sent a message reading, "Please do not mention the 150 character requirement in Paragraph 2! You can think of something to say.=)" Aaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrghhhhhhhhhhhh! Are they serious??

All that and all I got was this stupid link.

Kern County Quiz

Who Don't Do That?

The residents of Bakersfield may not be too keen on mandatory curbside recycling, but you can your ass the bums in town are jumping for joy at the possibilities. Ever since Oscar and I moved into our new house last November I’ve noticed an awful lot of people going through the blue bins every other Tuesday. Anything of any value is fished out, which is fine by me – as long as it gets recycled. However, a couple of them took their searched a little too far yesterday.

Oscar had the day off a left home for a short time to run some errands. We have one of those old homes with the long driveway on the side and the garage in the backyard. Usually we keep the gate closed, but sometimes we just keep the dog in the house and leave it open for connivance sake, which is what he did. When he got home he found two bikes saddled with plastic bags full of cans in the driveway and two elderly gentlemen in our backyard riffling through the blue bin. Dude!

Oscar read them the riot act and reminded them they are trespassing etc. Their response? - “We didn’t know!” Apparently they find it perfectly acceptable to enter a stranger’s backyard when no one is home and help them selves to whatever they may find.

Geez. The trash isn’t even safe anymore.

For My Husband.

AKA - The World's Biggest Monty Python Fan.

Love It!!

Bleck!

Is anyone else out there sick and tired of looking at this dude's ugly mug? It's pretty clear the skeez ripped off millions. I, for one, will be glad when I don't have to hear about him anymore.

Quote of the Day

Me - Are you okay? You were in there an awful long time.

Him - I know. I felt like a PlayDoh Fun Factory, except it wasn't fun at all.

Alive and VERY Well!

Hello friends! My apologies for my long absence, but I can assure you I have been very, very busy. Not having a laptop puts a damper on blogging and I always forget to Twitter. I will try to do better but I can't promise anything. I've discovered that having a brief engagement translates into the first year of marriage looking like one very long honeymoon. (If you have the chance I highly recommend it.)

Anywho, I haven't forgotten about you my dear readers, and I've been taking pictures like crazy. Here is just a small sample of what I've been up to when I'm not at work of course.


I learned how to race Go-Carts and I was actually in a real race! (sorta)




I watched my son graduate from BHS - with honors!



I stayed cool in our fancy $70 inflatable pool.



Complete with my very own homemade chlorine float made from a rubber chicken and an empty milk jug. Okie enuf fer y'all?




Oscar and I spent a couple of weeks in Kernville where he mutilated a tree for me.




I attended the WHS Ladies 40th Birthday luncheon and actually had a pretty good time.



I spent three weeks in Pismo and ate a pile of crab.


And of course while we were there we enjoyed some Splash Cafe clam chowder on the pier.


And watched the surfers!


We also experimented with BBQ'ing pizza. There is just one word for it...YUM!




We also played a WHOLE LOT of Scrabble this summer.



I spent one whole week enjoying the hotel pool and catching up on my reading.



And Oscar enjoyed the awesome hot tub waterfall.



Then we went back to Kernville to enjoy the river one last time before summer ends.




Even our dog Rita had a good time.


And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Plenty more pictures and blogging to come now that we have returned to reality.

Sorry to disappoint, but there are no new "chairs at the table" just yet, but trust me - we're working on it! :-P

I'm starting to love Bakersfield more & more!

I love the fact that stuff happens here that you just can’t make up! There I was, watching the local news with my husband, and the next thing we know they’re reporting on a Oildale man who put a bath tub in the tree in his FRONT YARD!! Ray Bishop supposedly (yeah - sure!) put the tub in his tree as a quirky kind of bird bath. But when the temperatures went up recently, he was unable to resist the lure of hanging out (quite literally) in the luxurious tree tub.

When a reporter showed up to interview Ray, as the lounged in his bird-bath-pool-tub, he asked him, “This is not the kind of thing you may see in other parts of Bakersfield…?”

“No,” he responded, straight faced and with a southern drawl, “Well…this IS Oildale.”

The report ended (amongst numerous giggles from the news staff) by adding that many of Ray’s neighbors had also dropped by to make use of the “Oildale Jacuzzi.”

Or, more appropriately, I think - The Daleian-Doughboy.

***UPDATE*** You can catch the video here.

Could this scenario get anymore cliché?

Photo by Troy Harvey / The Californian

A 58-year-old Bakersfield man was found photographing three nude boys in a trailer park with this sign by the door. The sign reads, “Tons of Hugs,” “Kids Spoiled Here,” and “Free Cookies.” *sound of hand slapping forehead*

Obviously the dude has a COMPLETELY different definition of spoiled.

And so it begins.

Here is an article about my friend I told you about before. The case has finally gone to trial.

"She was cute when she was little!"

This is our dog Rita laying on a pile of laundry. Rita likes to lay on top of things, sort of like a cat, but her favorite thing in the whole, wide world to lay on is my head. Rita doesn't just love to snuggle, she's brought it to a whole new level. She doesn't just want to be close to me, she seems intent on actually burrowing into my skin.

We keep the door closed and Rita out of our room while we sleep because she is entirely too in the way. In the morning as soon as she hears us stirring she gets up and waits by the door ready to spring into action. As soon as the door opens, just a little bit, Rita races towards the bed, leaps ten feet into the air, and lands nose first on my head. Then she proceeds to neck with me. Not, not that kind of neck. She uses her cold, pointy little nose and pries her way between my neck and the pillow, then she climbs backs over again. Over and over again she circles my neck until Oscar finally lifts her off me. As sweet as she is, it isn't really a very pleasant way to wake up every morning.

Is it any wonder I have give Rita the nickname Chupacabra?

Bakopranos

Bakersfield to Ridgecrest

I have to admit, I've never actually driven to Ridgecrest. I never had a reason to. Now I know why.

Enjoy your trip!

Nasty News

Yikes. There’s been some very disturbing news going on in Bakersfield lately. A group of teenaged boys savagely beat an 81-year-old man to death. Ezequiel Perez was out collecting cans early Saturday morning when the boys jumped him and stole his cans. Then they left and came back later to beat him some more. Dear God. What happened to these kids to turn them into such beasts? I can not imagine. My heart goes out to the Perez family. Mr. Perez died on Father’s Day, leaving behind a wife and eight children.

Of course people are outraged - some more so than others. On the bakersfield.com blogs one person actually called for a “hanging.” I will never understand why some people think the proper response to violence is more violence. Although I admit this next news item does make me want to hit someone.

A former football player and coach from Centennial High School, Michael Turman, was arrested recently for owning and distributing child pornography. He admitted to being addicted to the stuff and told investigators that enjoying viewing images of young boys and that he didn’t know how to stop himself. Oh boy! This dude is messed up on so many levels. He has a wife and two kids whose lives he has now completely screwed up. Nice work. And he claims that being molested at a young age is what messed him up. I will never get that, but I admit I am no expert. It just doesn’t make sense to me that if something awful happened to you at a young age, that you’d be sexually aroused by seeing imagines of that same awful thing.

Not me. No sir.

Funny

This has probably been around for a while, but I just found it today.

Heh. Heh.

Back to Basics

The sad story about the man and his children being hit by a car reminded me of something I’ve been meaning to blog about. This has nothing to do with those people - they were on the sidewalk. I don’t know if its just me, but I see an awful lot of people crossing the street illegally ALL THE TIME. And by all the time, I mean every single day. A couple of weeks ago I nearly ran a kid over when he started to run across the street without looking first. I was turning left on to Chester when the dumb ass ran right out in front of me. I had to slam on my brakes to keep from killing him. Obviously he didn’t know about my history.

Yesterday I watched in disbelief as a grown man walked across California Ave – three lanes of traffic! He didn’t even try and hurry. What the hell? One of the cars he was prancing in front of was a Hummer. Maybe he wanted to see what if feels like to be a bug on a grill.

Honestly, I am blown away by how many people I see walking in the streets and crossing them wherever they feel like. What kind of a messed up society are we living in that people are not being taught to use cross walks and look both ways before crossing the street? Oh, that’s right - he same society where we have to have billboards encouraging men to be a father to their children and instructing women not to do drugs when they’re pregnant.

It’s a sick, sad world.

I Hate Honkies

In typical ‘same ol’ same ol’ Bakersfield fashion, the ‘Train Horn VS No Train Horn’ controversy is back in the news. (Why can’t we ever just resolve crap around here? It seems like every city issue is argued to death for years.) Anyway, so the people who complained long enough about the loud train horns (me included) finally found some peace beginning in March, when we won a temporary cease and desist on the racket. According to the paper, now the city has to decide whether or not to spend “millions of tax payers dollars” to fix the quiet zone.

I just don’t get this. I know I’m over simplifying the matter, but seriously, couldn’t they just tell them not to honk SO LOUD!!!! I have lived within earshot of the train tracks downtown for twenty years. Sure, sometimes the noise bothered me. Especially when they would slam together creating a sound something akin to a bomb going off over my bed – no better way to wake up in a puddle! But mostly I didn’t mind the noise, or I simply didn’t notice it. Then, about three years ago, all hell broke lose.

The “story” goes that the city had an agreement with the railroad to respect a “quiet zone” and that it was allowed to expire, which is when the honking began. I personally think that is only half the story. The trains have always honked a little. They still do. I hear them sometimes in the middle of the night toot, tooting down the tracks. No big deal. What I think that happened is those train guys got together and said,

“Hey! Whatdaya say we screw with Bakersfield and start blasting them out of bed in the middle of the night?? Come on! Our jobs are boring – it’ll be fun!! Anyone want some meth?”

Or something like that anyway.

Honestly, its not the honking that needs to be stopped, it’s the cretins inside who get their rocks off blasting the horn as LOUD AND LONG AS INHUMANLY POSSIBLE.
BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!! I’m sure there are times when it necessary for them to really lay on the horn. Like when there is a little old lady with a basket full of mewing puppies gently napping on the tracks. But honestly, how often does that happen?

Once, twice a week tops.

Screw that! The law, I mean.

Call me a liberal wacko, but I really don’t get why some people get so crazy over the idea that gay people be allowed to marry. Honestly, I couldn’t give a rat’s ass. How does a couple of homos getting married somehow make my marriage less sacred? My marriage is sacred because we have promised to love, honor and cherish each other only and asked God to bless it. It has nothing to do with what my neighbors are doing.

Unfortunately, our local Auditor-Controller, the chick in charge of marriage licenses amongst other things, doesn’t see it that way. The press has been all up in her grill about what she is going to do when the new law goes into effect on June 13. Today, we found out. Ann Barnett has chosen to not perform any more marriage ceremonies for anyone - gay or straight. Seriously, that woman needs to remove the stick from her butt.

I find this news a little more upsetting than I normally would I think because Oscar and I recently got married at the county clerk’s office. It makes me mad to think we wouldn’t be able to have a quick, affordable wedding just because some witch hates gays. If she doesn’t want to do her job, we need to find someone else to do it for her.

I doubt she’d be hard to replace.

Talk about Egg on the Face!

I don’t know about y’all, but I find it somewhat embarrassing to go to McDonalds and order an Egg Mc Muffin. I know it’s bad for me. I know it’s fattening. I know its junk food. I also know it’s yummy sometimes. Even so, I can not think of an insistence in which I would become SO furious over the quality of said Mc Muffin that I would literally put my job on the line AND face criminal prosecution. Deputy City Attorney Michael Richards would obviously disagree with me.

Richards, a 33-year old lawyer (who, by the way, makes/made $80+ a year) became sooooo upset after he found the Sausage Mc Muffins he ordered were sans egg that he returned to the establishment, argued with the Mc Donald’s employee (which, really, isn’t it bad enough he works at Mc Donald’s? Now he has to mess with an a-hole over a samwhich??) then JUMPED over the counter, grabbed the bag of burgers he had returned unhappy with, and stormed out with a definitive F YOU and no doubt a air of righteousness few have seen since the coming of the messiah. Yeah, he taught those mutha f-ers a lesson oh boy! He also landed his sorry ass in jail.

I bet he's missing those muffins now.

Don't mind her...she's just tied up right now.

Yet another bizarre story is brewing in Bake Town. Last month a 44 year-old woman, Lora Shine, was found dead, tied up and duct taped. The two men who were with her are James Wyatt, 60, and Justin Ennis, 21. James and Justin each claim the other tied the woman up and swear that when they saw her last she was alive. I guess being tied up and having duct tape over the mouth has a funny way of making people dead sometimes.

The thing that’s really weird is the relationship between these three. James and previously dated Justin’s mother and the two had become friends. Huh. If he dated Justin’s mother 9 years ago that would have mean he was 51 and Justin was 12.

Kinda strange for a grown man to make friends with kid isn’t it? Especially when they apparently liked to drink and get stoned together. Okay Grandpa – act your age!

Anyway, according to Justin they hung out all the time and he had witnessed James tie up Lora before. Who don’t do that? He never indicated if she was into it or not, he just said James tied her up all the time. (Maybe that explains the “off again” spells in their relationship.) He also said he thought James was trying to frame him to get him out of the way so James could go after his girlfriend. Ew! I’m assuming Justin’s girlfriend is somewhere around his age, and that’s just… Ew!

In fact, Justin did a whole lot of talking after he got arrested, going so far as to give an interview from his cell. Apparently he had not yet met with an attorney who undoubtedly would have told him to shut the hell up. He admitted he helped tie the woman up and carry her upstairs, but then professes his innocence in her death by saying, “I know I didn’t kill her. I don’t have a motive to have this (expletive) dead.” I’m assuming the expletive was “bitch” and if so, he doesn’t make a very compelling argument. Obviously he is not versed in the ways of Lincoln-Douglas.

For his part, James is claiming that he is a victim as well. When police arrived he had a broken arm and some other cuts and scraps. He says that Justin was forcing him to stay in the house and he had to jump out of a window to escape.

Whatever dude. This whole story stinks to high heaven.