Life With Frenchie

Running out of time, so here’s a quick one boys & girls!

Tonight is the office Christmas party. Just like the last 2 years, I waited until after work today to find an outfit! But, you know cheap…er, I mean thrifty me! I got a dress for $20 at Marshall! Yay me! My bra cost more than half of what the dress cost! LOL Oh, and while I was out, we found a speaker set for MM’s iPod Nano on clearance for $20.

I also managed to get a pedicure. Now, it’s 4:30 almost, the cocktail hour starts at 6 and I still have to shower, find my shoes (or run back out and buy new ones if the ones I have aren’t high enough to keep the dress from dragging), do my hair, do my makeup, pick up MM, drop her off at friend’s house, and possibly go by my office to get my “party” purse and accessories!

YIKES!

I’m outta here!

I saw this story and had to share. There just aren’t any words. Well, a lot of questions, but no comments.

Microsoft shuts down Santa for talking dirty
Automated program asked kids what they wanted for Christmas

By Jessica Mintz
The Associated Press

SEATTLE - Microsoft Corp. quickly shut down Santa Claus’ Web privileges after it found out the automated elf it created for kids to instant message with was talking naughty, not nice.

Last year, Microsoft encouraged kids to connect directly to “Santa” by adding northpolelive.com to their Windows Live Messenger contact lists. The Santa program, which Microsoft reactivated in early December, asked children what they wanted for Christmas and could respond on topic, thanks to artificial intelligence.

The holiday cheer soured this week when a reader of a United Kingdom-based technology news site, The Register, reported that a chat between Santa and his underage nieces about eating pizza prompted Santa to bring up oral sex.

One of the publication’s writers replicated the chat Monday. After declining the writer’s repeated invitations to eat pizza, a frustrated Santa burst out with, “You want me to eat what?!? It’s fun to talk about oral sex, but I want to chat about something else.”

The exchange ended with the writer and Santa calling each other “dirty bastard.”

Microsoft spokesman Adam Sohn said the company’s engineers tried to clean up Santa’s vocabulary, but even after making changes to the software, the company wasn’t comfortable keeping him online.

“It’s not like if you say, ’Hello Santa,’ he’s going to throw inappropriate stuff at you,” said Sohn.

Sohn said Santa’s lewd comment was sparked by someone “pushing this thing to make it do things it wasn’t supposed to do.”

Santa is just one of many “agents,” or automated IM programs, that computer users can chat with on Live Messenger. Some are useful — customer service agents, for example — while others are frivolous, like an alien that responds to IMs with burbling extraterrestrial noises. Sohn said some of the bots are programmed to fend off inappropriate messages.

“If they’re meant to be cheeky and have fun with you, they may repeat certain things back,” he said, or respond to certain words with “that’s naughty.”

Sohn said Microsoft was not aware that the Santa code included the foul language, but insisted the company did not suspect an employee prank.

Microsoft disabled Santa Tuesday. On Wednesday, northpolelive.com appeared to be online in one reporter’s essenger contact list, but Santa did not respond to her messages.

© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Apparently others have finally caught on that my birthday is supposed to be a multiple-day celebration!

Yesterday evening, after working late, I arrive home to a beautiful flower arrangement. EP’s dad & step-mom had sent it. YAY!

This morning, when I woke up to my alarm, I reached in my pillowcase to turn it off (I use my cell phone) and there was an envelope. It was a gift certificate for a massage! EP rocks!!!

I guess it’s time to come down from my high now…I’m figuring the presents have ended and I have to go back to being a mere mortal. It was fun while it lasted!

A few weeks back, MM and I went to a Girls’ Night Out BINGO sponsored by our Girl Scout Neighborhood. MM really raked it in winning lots of stuff, including a mother-daughter hair style appointment. We went two weekends ago to the salon and both just got our hair trimmed. I should have known the place was trouble when they weren’t really ready to handle “ethnic” hair. Unlike my experience in Connecticut, the stylist did not try to say they don’t blow dry “curly” hair. She was simply upset that the girl who made the appointments did not find out anything about our hair type, length, etc. and only booked us for 30 minutes each to get our hair washed, trimmed, and blown out. The appointments started at noon and we had to be in Tampa by 4. Plenty of time, right? WRONG! We were in there for 3 hours!! Still, the lady did a good job on my hair (the trainee who booked the appointments had to blow out MM’s hair which is what took the other 2+ hours) so I scheduled an appointment for this evening to get the color done on my hair in time for our office Christmas party tomorrow.

Well, you know me. I am very bad about remembering things that aren’t written down, so I called today to find out exactly what time my appointment was for this evening. That’s when the girl on the phone said “Oh, we don’t have an appointment down for you.” Now, this was not a case of me thinking I had called to make an appointment somewhere and I actually forgot. No! I was standing there with the stylist looking at times. So what happened? Apparently, the stylist wrote it down for next week! UGH! That does me no good! The girl on the phone started to say something, but I wasn’t too concerned. I just told her “Well, that’s no good because I need it tonight. Just cancel my appointment. Thank you. Bye.” *click* I imagine the girl was sitting there with a “What a bee-otch” look on her face. Not my problem.

Luckily, the nice lady at the mall who regularly saves MM’s hair from being burnt off by my own doing has time for me tonight. So, what color will my hair be in about 7 hours?? Hmmmm…

Wow….just wow! There was absolutely nothing on TV tonight after I got my Kid Nation fix, so we landed on Kitchen Nightmares with Gordon Ramsay. OY VEI!!!

I don’t know if all episodes are like this, but these people were f’ing crazy. And no, my blog is not getting potty mouth. I’m mimicking what I have listened to for the last 1/2 hour. Actually, I guess it would be more like the show if I said “…but these people are *bleep*ing crazy”!

Tonight (or whenever it was filmed) they were at Peter’s Italian Restaurant in Babylon, NY. Wow…just wow! (I know, I already said that.) Those people were out of their mind. The restaurant was nasty..or at least the kitchen was. There were rotted vegetables in the walk in! I don’t know if I can watch this again. Although, it’s got the whole “train wreck” going for it…you know where you can’t look away, no matter how awful it is! I also am going to have ringing in my ears tomorrow because of all the “bleeps” that happen every other word.

Can any of you tell me what the Homestead Act is? Okay, anyone who didn’t Google it? I know I’m not the lone dummy in the group! Well, there are a couple of kids in Bonanza City that could explain it to you better than most history teachers!

Tonight, it became evident that the Kid Nation is synonomous with Nerd Central. Now, I’m not criticizing those kids. Good for them for being so smart. But, c’mon! How many times do you think this whole group, collectively, has received wedgies, had their lunch money taken, or been charged to go pee at school? I was by no means the coolest kid in school, but I would like to believe that I wasn’t as bad as some of them.

Being made to feel really dumb by some 9-year-olds was not the only thing that happened this week though. They also made most adults look lazy and weak! The Showdown consisted each of the districts having to move their “homestead” west. They had to break down a house (4 walls and a roof) and move it and reconstruct it. Those kids rocked! They got the houses moved in less than an hour and earned their reward.

Of course, there was the age-old dilemma — practical or fun. Hmmm….and what did our younguns choose?

Well, the town sherrif, our friend Sophia, had the final say. I’m pretty sure the girl was going to choose “practical” but as soon as she got in front of everyone and realized that she’d likely be the first one killed off the show, she decided “fun”. What was the fun, you ask? A hot air balloon ride over the town. Now my inner Urkel makes its appearance. I would have said “Screw you all…we’re going for practical.” Or maybe that’s just the witch in me coming out and saying “I don’t like any of you so I just want to make you mad!”

 Oh my god! One of the smart kids is talking (he’s 9) and he’s cracking me up! I have to take a break and finish later cause I’m laughing too hard!

A friend from college visited the area over Thanksgiving. We had made plans to have dinner together, but she confused her schedule so we did not get a chance to meet up. She did, however, extend an invitation to visit her if ever we were in California. Seeing as I now have three friends that live out in California, it’s becoming closer to reality that we make a trip out there.

Ideally, I would love to rent a San Diego beach house so we can save on cost of food and not eat out every meal. It would also be a great idea if we decided to invite another couple or family to join us and would definitely help on the overall cost of the trip. You know I’m all about finding an alternative to spending tons of money!

While doing a seach on San Diego beach rentals  I found out about Mission Bay so I started also looking into Mission Beach rentals. I’m not too versed on California, but it appears to be a little north of San Diego and more a coastal area which would probably be more my pace than the “big city”. I think it’s time to really start serious planning for next summer’s vacation!

Sponsored by http://www.sdvr.com

So, the school nurse at MM’s school called me this afternoon. I was thrown off because the area code was not the area code of the town where we live. She called to tell me that MM had a “collision” with another child on the playground and was given aspirin and an ice pack. She let me talk to her, and poor MM sounded just awful. She was still sniffly and really soft spoken (for anyone who knows her, that is very out of character! LOL). I asked her if she wanted EP to pick her up, but she’s a trooper and decided to stay at school. She also did not want to ride the bus home, but stay after school for a pizza party. Glad to see my kid has her priorities in order - party before health!

Yes boys & girls…today is that most glorious of days that I have referenced recently. Thirty-three years ago today, at precisely 12:13 PM Eastern, on the hallowed ground of Ft. Benning, inside the sacred halls of Martin Army Hospital, this grand planet was blessed with a presence never before known - ME!

I am a total kid when it comes to my birthday. Even though I am beyond the years of having presents waiting for me when I wake up, I still am just all giddy on my birthday. I enjoy receiving cards, e-cards, e-mails, calls, telegrams, smoke signals…everything. It’s even more special these days because MM loves my birthday, too!

This morning, I went in to kiss her goodbye before leaving for work and she had my presents waiting. There was an artificial carnation (I think from her briding to Juniors in Girl Scouts), a partially used bottle of hand lotion (you’ll smell me coming a mile away!), a little ceramic teddy bear holding a heart (origins unknown…did MM turn to a life of crime to keep her mommy happy???), a picture keychain (I paid for it when I ordered school pictures), a dime (????), a squishy toy that my co-worker and I enjoy playing with (it’s looking kind of old and crusty these days…eewwww!), a keychain that she won at Girl Scout Bingo Night (I keep trying to give it back to her!!) and her favorite little monkey that she sleeps with (all together now - “AWWWWWWWW!!!!”).

Okay, so now where are all the cards with money???? Feel free to leave unsolicited praise and birthday wishes as you drop by!

I live in the Mecca for anyone over, oh, let’s say 45! That means, per capita, Florida has more crappy drivers than anywhere on this planet. Okay, so maybe I’m exaggerating, but for anyone who’s driven in the Sunshine State, I’m sure they can feel my pain.

It’s not always the old folks that forget the basics or are just plain braindead when they get behind the wheel. But, for the sake of continuing my ranting about old people and 2 tons of metal on wheels, we’re going to assume they are.

I both live and work in close proximity to a major US Highway that is 3-4 lanes in both directions. The speed limit on this road is between 45 and 55 MPH. The road has a median, sometimes concrete, so that you either have to go to a traffic light or a legal u-turn to reach places on the opposite side of the road.

In my case, I work on the northbound side of this road. Within a couple hundred of feet is a legal u-turn lane. There is another legal u-turn a few hundred feet further north. My problem is the people that are turning north onto the road and then want to make a legal u-turn. These people seem to think that the only way that you can do this is to cross four lanes of traffic at once and that it is way too much to drive an extra 200 feet and make that same u-turn, thereby allowing them to safely, and sanely, make their way across four lanes of 55 MPH traffic! Thus, it often happens that the person desiring to go south on this road sits and waits for ALL traffic to clear so they can make their way across all four lanes. This causes those of us who have more sense and realise it is a lot safer to slowly cross the lanes, perhaps even drive the extra couple hundred feet or, heaven forbid, even go even further to the traffic light to make the u-turn, to wait for minutes at a time…like 5 minutes or more! Yeah, yeah. I’m impatient. I know! But, when you’re talking traffic - rush hour traffic at that - 5 minutes is an eternity! But for anyone who knows these kinds of roads, you know how frustrating it can be to sit and wait for someone who does not understand the concept of merging with traffic and progressing your way across the road instead of trying to take it all at once.

I’m going to have a freakin’ aneurysm driving in Florida!