January 25, 2013

Had bacon for breakfast yesterday, yes ... I AM the picture of health. ;) That plus the beautiful spring-like weather gave me the energy I needed to go on a cleaning binge in the house. Our son is still doing the stand-off thing ... refusing to do ANY chores, so I'm refusing to give him any privileges. He lost his laptop yesterday over this & today I take his gaming system. If he wants to be a non-participating member of the house & make me do everything by myself, then he doesn't need to have all his games & Internet. I cleaned the bathroom & bedroom mirrors, tried to clean up the television in the bedroom that we were gifted but that's going to take several passes before it's actually clean (belonged to a teen, so it hasn't been cleaned since it was purchased), fed all the pets, straightened the dining room chairs. cleaned the stove, did the dishes, wiped down the counters, put a bunch of stuff away, swapped out & straightened the sofa afghan, swept & mopped the living room, went through my bookshelves & left a nice note on Pete's facebook page, & took the trash out. Our son came home in the middle of all this, never said a word, went straight to his room & didn't come out again until he came out to cook dinner for himself only & then disappear again. I'm REALLY tired of his laziness & selfishness. As long as he continues this behavior, he will continue to lose something else ... every day ... until he's just sitting in an empty room with his bed & his clothing (which is almost where he is already ... but he has books). After 2 solid hours of sweating & working on the house, I finally got to come in & sit down to go to work on eBay, then after that check facebook, checked the Yahoo! app on my phone, went through the mail & started sorting the overgrown pile of catalogs I have in my office (many duplicates & all mixed up, out of order, & although stacked ... still messy by my standards). In the middle of all that, we got toned out for an unauthorized burn, so I blew out my candle & headed to the station. I never did make it to the call, but I was on standby at the station in the engine just in case they needed more water. While I was there I got the mail & paid the fuel bill. When I got back home I finished sorting out the catalog pile & now it's a much smaller pile, sorted alphabetically, & stacked very neatly. Then it was time to go through my AOL mail. It's been a month since I got to it & I had over 4k e-mails. No, not over 4k spam e-mails ... over 4k e-mails that were supposed to be there. E-mails from my mom. E-mails from things I signed up for like newsletters & sales from companies I've purchased from in the past. And the fun part ... the reason my AOL account exists ... e-mails from my PSP e-list. Apparently during the week of Christmas I was MOTW (Member of the Week) & the members gifted me with some really cool tags. I collected all those, said many thank yous, collected some tags, tubes, & frames ... & had gotten about ¼ of the way through it all when Pete got home & I deleted what was left shut it all down. The mailbox is now clear. Phew! Pete & I had a quick dinner, watched Dark Matters, I took my turn in Words w/ Friends, & headed in to play 5 Card Slingo & go to sleep. Except I couldn't sleep. Why? I have no idea ... but after a while, when it was obvious that I wasn't tired enough to go to sleep, I came back out & started beading. Now that all the beads had been sorted, it was time to actually string the loom & try beading. I love the loom, I love what it can do ... I just don't love doing it. I know it was my 1st time & I would get better at it with time, but stringing the loom was a huge pain in the butt, then finally the actual beading part. This would have been a great hobby to take up at 17. NOT at 47! My eyesight isn't what it used to be & these are 2mm seed beads. Holy crap they're tiny! The needle is tiny! The thread is tiny! Stringing the beads was hard enough for me, but then trying to slip each bead between each string on the loom & then put the needle back through them without them popping out from between the threads ... OMG ... that was horrible! The 1st row was the worst. After 2 failed attempts I decided to give it ONE more shot before giving up completely. The 3rd attempt was successful finally & as I had hoped, following rows would be easier. Still a huge pain in the butt, but easier at least. I got 3 rows done & finally felt tired. It was 4:30a. Sonofa ... OK bedtime. I still got up when I was supposed to, so I'm completely exhausted right now. At least I won't have any trouble getting to sleep tonight! LCFD soiree at Sean's Tuesday.

BTK killer sends message (2005):

On January 25, 2005, a Wichita, Kansas, television station receives a postcard from the BTK killer that leads police to discover a Post Toasties cereal box that had been altered to contain the letters BTK. This communication was one in a long line sent by the serial killer who terrorized Wichita for over 30 years, brutally murdering 10 people and taunting law enforcement and the local media. A month later, on February 25, Dennis Lynn Rader, a husband, father of two and compliance officer for Park City, Kansas, was taken into police custody and soon confessed to being the BTK killer.

Rader (1945- ) committed his first murders in 1974, when he strangled four members of one family--a husband, wife and two of their children. Six more victims, all female, followed, the last one in 1991. Throughout the 1970s, the BTK killer, or BTK strangler, as he was also known, sent letters to the media in which he claimed knowledge of the crimes. Rader nicknamed himself BTK for his method of binding, torturing and killing his victims.

Outwardly, Rader, a Cub Scout troop leader and church council president, appeared to be an ordinary, upstanding citizen. As a compliance officer, he was responsible for enforcing town ordinances. However, there were occasional complaints that he was overzealous in his work and harassed people for minor offenses.

In 2004, the attention-seeking BTK killer began contacting the media again, sending notes and poems and packages that included some of his victims' jewelry and driver's licenses. In February 2005, Rader sent a floppy disk containing a BTK letter to a local TV station. The disk was eventually traced back to Rader's church computer and he was identified. DNA evidence helped conclusively link Rader to the crimes.

Rader was charged with 10 counts of murder. He initially pled not guilty and then switched his plea to guilty before his court trial began. Rader, who stalked many of his victims and referred to them as "projects," said he strangled them as part of a sexual fantasy. In August 2005, he was sentenced to 10 consecutive life terms in prison. At his sentencing, Rader made a bizarre statement in which he listed things he had in common with his various victims, including an interest in drawing, gardening and writing poetry. Rader was ineligible for the death penalty because it didn't exist in Kansas during the years he carried out his crimes.

FastMall:

Now you can navigate any mall map WITHOUT the need for GPS or WIFI. Once you download any mall map you can get interactive navigation even without an Internet signal!!!
NOW AVAILABLE IN SPANISH!!!
As seen in New York Times, Fox Business News, Scobleizer, Techcrunch, ABC News, Gizmodo, LA Times, Star Tribune, NBC Los Angeles, Mashable, AdAge, Pioneer Press & 100's more. Now in 22 countries around the world.
Win a gift card at your favorite mall or store by checking in if your selected!
FastMall™ is a truly exciting, helpful interactive experience and community that allows you to find, then be guided turn by turn to restrooms, stores and restaurants at shopping malls around the world all without using GPS or WIFI.
Remember where you parked your car, add a text, photo or video review of anything you would like and share it with the world, check in at the mall or stores you love and of course shake your iPhone to locate and then be taken to the nearest restroom!
Use a baby stroller? Use a wheelchair? FastMall™ allows you to select ELEVATORS ONLY as an option so you can easily get around the mall!
50+ features.
All of the largest shopping malls in the US, UK, Canada, France and more with full interactive map directories to navigate through, turn by turn.
Many new malls just added, check FastMall.com and click malls.
Want your mall added? Let us know and be a part of the fastest growing iPhone shopping community in the world.

If you are shopping for a new contract, check out billshrink.com, a free site that compares your phone usage with 10 million date points to help you find the best carrier & deal for you. Potential savings: more than $300/yr, according to BillShrink's estimates.

In 1954, Ann Hodges was napping when a meteorite slammed into her house, bounced off a radio & struck her arm. She was the only person ever to be hit by a meteorite & live to tell about it.

In the words of William George Jordan, "Into the hands of every individual is given a marvelous power for good or evel - the silent, unconscious, unseen influence of his life. This is simply the constant radiation of what man really is, not what he pretends to be."

LEGO Instructions:

NOTE: This app was created by fans of LEGO® and is not an official LEGO product.
LEGO® Instructions is a fan-built application for those who is fond of creating with their Lego pieces. It’s the only app in the Store which presents building instructions in large step-by-step pictures to show parents and kids how to make these items.
This app is a handy tool for those who lost or somehow doesn't have their building instruction for building LEGO items. The instructions are clear and easy to follow – almost like the real instructions from the box.
The app includes dozens (about 150) LEGO schemes for popular LEGO sets which you can make in minutes with your child:
1. Hen & Chicken
2. Blue Bus
3. Thunder Blazer
.. and more and more!
The number of designs will increase with future versions of the application.
The new app interface allows searching in specified categories to find a particular LEGO design, for example, adventurers, animals, boats, buildings, etc. Another feature - all the instructions are kept in the web-based storage so it’s no need to keep the instructions on the phone. Simply select the item you’d like to build from the menu, download it off the server and start building!
Good news for LEGO lovers you get it all for FREE.

Make a fake I.D. using your office copy machine.

Most exciting roller coasters in the world top 10:

1. Kingda Ka at 6 Flags Great Adventure in Jackson Township, N.J.
2. Steel Dragon 2000 at Nagashima Spa Land Amusement Park in Mie Prefecture, Japan
3. Millennium Force at Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio
4. Top Thrill Dragster at Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio
5. Dodonpa at Fuji-Q Highland, Fujiyoshida, Yamanashi, Japan
6. Thunder Dolphin, part of the Tokyo Dome City in Tokyo, Japan
7. Goliath in the Colossus County Fair of 6 Flags Magic Mountain in Calencia, California
8. Dragon Khan in PortAventura in Salou, Catalonia, Spain
9. Titan at 6 Flags Over Texas in Arlington, Texas
10. Nemisis at Alton Towers, England

Would you say there were a little rough last night? I hate to talk about audiences that have gone, but I'm glad they're gone. Last time I saw faces like that, they were garnished with a lemon slice. -Johnny Carson 1991