Change is Good
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OK, maybe it's not as disco-y as the real "slide", but your computer IS plugged in, so it is, in essence, electric...
Never mind.
Here's another distance game for you, compliments of Valerie! Choose your character (I personally like the walrus), and like the Santa-Reindeer game, hold down your mouse, pull back, and then let your avatar fly! My personal best so far is 244 meters - can you beat it?
 Ice SlideCatapult your favourite polar animal as far as you can. |
| Play this free game now!! |
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OK, admit it, you are tired of monkeys, pumpkins, even paper airplanes and ceiling fans.
Well, how about something to put you in a festive holiday mood?
(No, I do not mean spiked egg nog.)
And what better way to put the twinkle in your emotional lights than a good game of reindeer slaughter?
Fine, it's not bloody, and it renders the reindeer more stunned than slaughtered, but the intent is the same. Aim Santa's bow and arrow and try your best to "sleigh" his reindeer before striking down his elves!
http://www.dedge.com/flash/christmas/index.html
(Tip: Click on Santa - keep the left click held down, pull back on your mouse to adjust the intensity of the bow, then when you have the reindeer in your sights, let go!)
Now, go have fun. I have some egg nog to pervert...
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Yesterday, when writing about Riley Sawyers, I lauded the efforts and talents of the forensics teams involved in compiling not only DNA evidence, but in creating a composite sketch of the child – a task I cannot even fathom given the level of decomposition which must have been present.
But their talents and technology paid off. They not only identified the child, they located the scum adults who murdered her.
That kind of technology is utilized in legal processes daily, the most prominent technique coming to the fore being DNA.
Even with minimal trace evidence at crime scenes or left behind on victims, DNA technology is responsible for not only countless convictions, but in freeing those wrongly accused and even more wrongly incarcerated for crimes ranging from robbery to rape to murder.
But nowhere is DNA evidence more actively used than in paternity disputes - you know, those sad, Who’s Yer Daddy? cases which populate celebrity headlines, Jerry Springer, and keep private labs in business all around the world.
I use the word "sad" in describing these cases because they really are. "Sad" that so much "kootch" is put around that a woman can’t pinpoint the man who pulled the trigger and hit the target. "Sad" that so many men deny, deny, deny even knowing the woman right up to the time the evidence of their intimate knowledge of her is proven.
And "sad" that so many children are caught in the middle of so much adult irresponsibility.
The celebrity roster is long – Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock, Goran Visnjic, Kevin Costner, Mick Jagger, and countless other sports figures – they have all been forced to ante up their DNA to either prove or disprove paternity accusations.
Since their inception, the tests have been costly and time consuming - results often taking weeks and weeks to return.
But just like the advances in technology which have swept us from the 8 Track player to the credit card sized MP3 player in the space of a mere thirty years – so to has science not only reduced the time for DNA results, but it has increased the accessibility to the general public.
Welcome to Who’s Yer Daddy? – the new Millennium Edition, available now at a Rite Aid drug store near you.
That’s right, the circle is now complete. Not only can you buy an over the counter test to predict when you are fertile, and a stick to pee on to confirm your pregnancy, you can now purchase a kit to nail the father’s ass to the legal wall.
Hmmm, I guess it’s not his ass we’re confirming. It would be more accurate to say these kits are good at pinpointing whose front side did the deed. Basically, it’s a Dick In A Box detector.
For only $29.99 (although with a coupon you can snag one for $19.99), you can purchase the DNA kit, made by Sorenson Genomics, at Rite Aids in Washington, Oregon, and California.
The kit contains everything you need for a do-it-yourself DNA-apalooza. It comes with three sets of cotton swabs to collect cheek samples from the child, the alleged father and the mother. (The mother is optional but helps strengthen the results, the company says.) The swabs are put into separate packets and mailed to Sorenson’s laboratory in Salt Lake City, along with $119 to cover the lab fees. Results are provided by mail, fax or on a password-protected Web site within five days of the laboratory receiving the samples.
Five days. You can barely get the dry cleaners to get a stain out of a blue dress in five days...ahem...
Of course, these OTC type kits probably won’t stand up in a court of law – you know, the legal system is kind of squirrely when it comes to chain of custody where evidence is concerned and would probably flinch at seeing Postman Joe being listed as one of the links – but Sorenson has a provision for that too.
The kit advises people wanting to test for legal purposes to call the company and set up a chain of custody for the samples, for the bargain price of only $200.
So, how is this going over with the public?
According to a Sorenson spokesperson, the company has sold about 1,500 to 2,000 paternity tests a month through their Internet site and they hope to increase that greatly through drugstore sales. It hopes to expand to all Rite Aid stores and possibly other chains, he said. It also plans to begin advertising the test in stores, on the radio and possibly on television.
I can see the print ad now. A photo of a hungover, disheveled woman with her mascara smeared and her underwear on backwards, with the caption underneath: Got Spunk?
Or the radio ad...
We’ve all been there. You swore you’d never do it again, but when push came to love, you gave in and slept with your husband’s brother, his cousin, and the preacher at the revival meeting .... again. Now you’re late and don’t know who to share the good news with...
Sigh. Wouldn’t it just be easier to confine one’s box to one dick? Or if you insist on indulging in a Whitman’s Sampler of sperm each month, how about confining the dicks to some condoms?
I know, I know...dreamer.
Who knows if this easy access DNA test will be a hit or miss with the general public? Who can predick – sorry, predict – if folks will flock to Rite Aid to prove paternity? One thing, though, is certain...
I have condemned myself to singing this damned song again for the rest of the day...won’t you join me?
ONE: Cut a hole in the box...
TWO: Put your junk in that box...
THREE: Make her open the box...
(Enjoy the video. NBC yanked the majority of copies off the web, but I have found this one that still holds up - ignore the final frame - some asshats cannot spell...)
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I know Thanksgiving has come and gone, but just as there is always room for Jell-o, I believe there is always room for another good laugh.
Besides, turkey may be the traditional fare for November, but some people roll out a gobbler for December festivities as well.
This cartoon is compliments of Sandy in NC - watch your butt, er, back, Rachel Ray...
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When I finished up the earlier piece on little Riley Sawyers, aka "Baby Grace", I stated that her mother and her mother's boyfriend deserved nothing better than what they did to that poor child.
At that point, the only details that had been released by the coroner indicated a fractured skull - awful enough.
Tonight, details from the taped, lawyer attended confession of Riley's mother, Kimberly Dawn Trenor, have been released, and they are heartbreaking.
In her confession she states that on the day Riley died - sorry, died is too gentle a word - on the day she was brutally, viciously murdered, both she and her boyfriend, human defecation, Royce Zeigler, beat the child with leather belts, and held Riley's head under water.
She then states that Zeigler "picked the girl up by her hair and also threw her across the room, slamming her head into the floor."
She went on to detail how they went to a Wal-Mart that night and bought the Sterilite storage container, a shovel, concrete mix, and other supplies. The container in which Riley was stuffed was then hidden in a storage shed for "one to two months."
"One to two months"? Which is it, Kimberly? We're not talking expired milk in the back of the fridge here. We're talking about your brutally murdered daughter. The daughter you helped kill.
Finally, she says she and Zeigler carried the box to the Galveston Causeway and tossed it in, and she watched it drift away.
BEATEN. HELD UNDER WATER. THROWN LIKE A RAGDOLL.
SHE. WAS. TWO. YEARS. OLD.
I cannot even explain the overwhelming feeling of black hatred and desire to kill another human being I experienced when I read Kimberly's statement. I have no tolerance for the abuse of a child - ZERO - less than zero, in fact. Anyone who treats an innocent baby in such a way, is not a human being, and they do not deserve the court processes reserved for ordinary people.
They deserve to get what they gave.
If ever a punishment needed to fit a crime, this has to be it. I have a leather belt hanging in my closet - what about you?
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We're all human. We make mistakes.
One of the bigger ones we all face at some point is mangling, or altogether forgetting, a person's name.
A name. Unique, highly personal. And some people take true offense to being either unmemorable or having their title jumbled up on the way out of someone's mouth.
Most times, most people are cool about it. They helpfully supply the missing name or correct the pronunciation, and graciously allow the conversation to move forward without reproach.
But sometimes, a foot gets so firmly wedged in a mouth that the result is truly offensive.
(And funny.)
Apparently celebrity chef Jamie Oliver - he of the Naked moniker - was speaking on the phone with Angelina Jolie when he attempted to say one of her children's names - that of Shiloh, her biological child with Brad Pitt.
Shiloh Pitt.
Easy enough, right?
I guess not. In his apparent nervousness and high level of suckupedness, what came out was Piloh Shitt.
Pardon me while I laugh again. Admit it, it IS rather funny. You know they thought long and hard before settling on that original name. We parents do that. We say it out loud, we try it with myriad middle names, sound it out with last names - hers and his. We think about possible nicknames, any potential for schoolyard fun-poking. But I guarantee you Brad and Angie NEVER gave it the trade-beginning-letters test. That's an obscure one most parents miss.
Until now.
Oliver has apologized profusely, even sending Cheerio bars as a peace offering to both Jolie and little Piloh - sorry - SHILOH.
No word yet on whether Angelina will accept the apology ...or soon be spotted wearing a vial of Jamie's blood around her neck...
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Riley Ann Sawyers.
The tiny little blond child, who for weeks has gone by the police-given moniker of "Baby Grace", finally has her name back.
Would that her life could be restored as well.
Baby Grace - the child whose body was found in a storage box washed up on a piece of land just off Galveston Island, Texas - held the hearts of a city, a state, and in fact, the country, in her tiny grasp since October 29 when a fisherman made the gruesome discovery.
I followed this story closely, even more so than other stories of missing and exploited children, as the child's body was found near one of my husband's hotel properties in Galveston. I can tell you it shook the community badly.
Late last week when authorities released a forensic artist's sketch of what Baby Grace may have looked like in life, I again marveled at the ability of the living to help speak for the dead. DNA, sketches, computer imaging - the number of ways investigators have to help seek the answers they need and the justice the victims deserve is amazing to me.
And now that Baby Grace has been identified as Riley Ann Sawyers, complete with an actual photograph, I am completely humbled by the talents of the artist whose work was crucial in engaging the public's assistance.
The resemblance is stunning, and the response from the community was almost immediate. As authorities had hoped, someone, somewhere knew that little face, and knew she had not been seen for a while.
Tips did indeed flood in from around the world, allowing investigators to track down more than 80 children referred to by the callers. But the whereabouts of another 22 toddlers is still unknown. That is heartbreaking.
Twenty two toddlers, their lives barely begun, simply missing.
In Riley's case, details are pointing to ugly custody matters, teenage parents (when Riley was born), deceit, etc. Riley's biological father lives in Ohio - he is not a suspect - he is a father who has worried for months about his child's whereabouts. It was June when his ex-wife told some bullshit story about social workers coming and taking Riley - she lives in Spring, Texas (75 miles from Galveston).
Social worker intervention would have surely been preferable to what actually happened.
Riley was the victim of abuse - medical examiners have confirmed that her skull was fractured.
Authorities have now arrested her mother, Kimberly Dawn Trenor, 19, and her boyfriend, Royce Clyde Zeigler II, 24. They are currently charged with injuring a child and tampering with physical evidence.
This white trash braintrust tossed a child's body into a plastic box and dumped her in the filthy waters off Galveston. Yeah, I would say that's "tampering with evidence".
Whatever happened - whatever preceded the death - it doesn't matter. At the heart of it is a mother who never should have been a mother. She was nothing more than a sperm container. She did not value, cherish, protect the life she was lucky enough to bring into this world.
As for the conjecture about custody disputes? It ultimately won't matter, but that anyone puts their children in the middle of their own grown-up, self inflicted pool of emotional sewage, is unforgivable. Using a child as a emotional weapon against an ex-spouse is cheap, it is juvenile, it is cowardly.
And those people who kill the children to "get back" at the ex? They deserve death.
As for the wastes of flesh who killed Riley and dumped her like so much garbage? They deserve nothing better than what they gave.
But to paraphrase that infamous line from Jaws, "We're gonna need a bigger box."
Rest in peace, Riley. Heaven indeed has a beautiful new angel.
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Twenty-six.
Even those of you who did not major in Math in college will quickly deduce that number is not related to the countdown to Christmas. No, that number would be 29. And while I am definitely counting those days too, the number 26 is very personal today.
I can hear those gears grinding in your heads. Just what could it signify???
How many pounds Linda gained on Thanksgiving?
Um, you people know me better than that. Rudy's a great cook, but my turkey only weighed 12 pounds, so even with pumpkin pie, that amount of poundage would be impossible.
The real number of snow globes she snagged on Black Friday?
That, too, would have been a tad difficult to pull off. Unless, of course, Kendall and I were willing to mug little old ladies outside of JC Penney. Then again, Kendall is a very focused, bitchy little thing when she wants something bad enough...nah, even she's too nice for a Senior Citizen Mugathon.
The number of cats she is now fostering under her roof?
Sorry - Denise may be quite the used car saleman when it comes to getting me to open my door to feline livestock, but I am not yet ready to be referred to by neighbor children as That Crazy Cat Lady On The Hill.
OK, ok - stop guessing.
Not to bore you with too many details, but the Sharp's lives are in flux once again.
For those of you who have called the blog "home" for at least a year, you may remember me detailing our last moving experience from Dallas to Austin in August of 2006.
For those of you new to DGMS, here's the Reader's Digest Condensed version...
We move. A LOT.
Carson is only 11 and has five cities under her belt already. And I dare say if Culley were to investigate tatoos, she'd probably come home with a United Van Lines truck on her asscheek. She's moved seven times.
I often joke that we're carnies, but with better teeth.
Well, thanks to an incredible job opportunity which presented itself to Rudy (and which he turned down twice before the pot was sweetened to such an extent, "NO" would have qualified us both for the moniker ASSHAT), we will be moving AGAIN.
This time to Seattle, Washington. (Yes, I own several umbrellas, thank you for asking.)
But because our lovely daughters are doing so well here in Austin - all are pulling straight A's, Culley just made National Honor Society, Carson is ripping up the soccer fields, Kendall has more money than God thanks to reffing at such a high level, they are all involved in theater, have more friends than I can keep track of, and are HAPPY - the girls and I will be staying put for the foreseeable future. The sorority Crappa Crappa Crappa is open for business.
Despite having moved so many times, this is not an easy decision to make. Our last move, with many of those same arguments in place, (and combined with trying to sell the house, etc) culminated in 2 years and eight months apart from Rudy. We averaged seeing him every three weeks.
Now, I realize there are many women out there who would love the chance to see the back of their spouse leave the house, and not see the front of him return for almost a month - I know many people in relationships like that.
But, I'm not that lucky.
I happen to be in love with the leader of this band of gypsies, so having him gone for long periods is hard.
He also happens to be an incredible father to our three daughters, so this is no easier on them. (Especially considering they are stuck here with their wackjob of a mother.)
Anyhoo - back to the number, 26.
He left this morning for Seattle. As I write this, he is somewhere between here and El Paso, with several days of driving ahead of him. (Yes, of course they would have paid for him to fly, but he wants to have a vehicle on that end.) 26 is the number of days till we see him again.
I ask for your patience as I use the blog to post the countdown each morning. Rudy is as much a faithful reader of the blog as you are, and the girls and I just want him to know that we are eagerly awaiting his return.
The daily number may show up as a large graphic (today with four teary eyes - one for each of his girls), or I may sneak it in somewhere in an article - it depends on my mood. But it will there. And when he leaves after Christmas, and each subsequent time a visit comes to an end, the countdown will again begin.
I don't know how long it will last. I don't know if I have another 2 years, eight months in me to be a single parent. (But believe me, I'm not a whiner. Sure, I may bitch about being horny from time to time, but as opposed to those who are single parenting while a loved one is deployed, Rudy wears a suit and a tie to work, not fatigues, an M-16, and the constant threat of bodily harm.)
I do know, however, that regardless of how long the process takes this time - the foundation of the Sharp family is a strong one, and all those numbers can't begin to shake it.
And besides, if I really begin to get lonely? Denise and her herd of Humane Society cats are just a phone call away...
(We miss you already, Rudy. Drive Safely.)
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...I will not be posting until at least Monday.
Heading out the door to Houston now for the weekend, but I promise a full Black Friday report upon my return (I have been up since 3am, and yes, Kendall and I hit a new personal best on snow globes...16.)
In the meantime, amuse yourself with the ARCHIVES. There's three years worth of fun to be found.
Have a great weekend!
~~Linda
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You all know I love South Park, so I think it's only fitting that as I approach my Thanksgiving dinner, I leave you all with this to "digest"...enjoy.
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