An Arizona Cheesehead's Thoughts

I've lived in this neighborhood for 1 1/2 years and I can't buy a date. George moves in a few days ago and he's already shacking up!

We've all got those movies that you stumble on while channel surfing and just have to sit down and watch. Doesn't matter if you have stuff to do and they're not always the best movies out there, either. I caught one of my faves today when I turned on the TV while I was eating lunch. It was Operation Petticoat from 1959. You may vaguely remember it as the movie with the pink submarine. There are some great names in there: the ever suave Cary Grant, Tony Curtis, Dina Merrill, Dick Sargent and Gavin McLeod. I just love this flick. Grant's portrayal as the Captain trying to get back to the war while dealing with Curtis' bad boy Lt. Holden and having a bunch of women on board is just charming. I don't think the man made a bad movie, ever.

Since Sugar Daddy won't let me have any pets, I have to take what I can get. This guy has decided to live in the base of our fountain. We're not sure how he got there since he would have had to come all the way into our courtyard to get to the fountain in the first place. He's a little shy, too. The first time I went out to take his picture he ducked under the water. You would be surprised how long this guy can hold his breath. I finally gave up waiting and came back out later. That time, I was stealthy like a ninja and snuck up on him.

The full title of this Christopher Moore book is Lamb - The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal. It tells the story of Jesus (called Joshua in the book) from age 6 to his death from the point of view of his best friend. The two travel around as Joshua tries to learn how to be the Messiah and Biff tries to get laid. The Apostles, Mary Magdalene and Jesus' family are all featured as well as a whole bunch of interesting characters. This book is hilarious and it put a very human side to Jesus (albeit a fictional one) that was not at all blasphemous. Moore is such a great writer. I sense a Barnes and Noble or Amazon buying binge in my future for the rest of his books.

I don't have any answers to the illegal/undocumented/whatever you want to call it immigration issues the US is facing. Frankly, I'm just not that smart. I do believe, however, that folks are going to keep trying to come here regardless of the risks as long as life in the US offers a greater economic benefit than where they come from. I don't think these people are evil or even plan on coming over here to live off the public dole. I see too many guys outside of Home Depot in 110 degree weather asking for work to think they're all looking for a free ride. What really bugs me though is when someone living here illegally badmouths the US. Hey, you're breaking our laws to be here so maybe you shut your trap about how awful it is here. There was one case here in Arizona that has had me (and a lot of folks) stewing for a while now. An illegal guy killed the parents and brother of his also illegal girlfriend and kidnapped their two children. While an Amber Alert (statewide ...

I have somewhat of a reputation at work of being cranky and impatient, especially when people make the same mistakes over and over. I know, hard to believe someone as lovable as I can be a crank... I got into work yesterday and saw right away that someone had moved stuff around on my desk and my PC. The crankiness started. I hate it when people move my crap. I thought perhaps the cleaning people had dusted so the crankiness level went down. Then, someone told me our PC Tech had been in there and I realized he'd hooked up my new monitor. Sweet! It's a super big flat panel that I've been waiting for since my old monitor blew out a couple of months ago. Since then, I've been on this too small flat panel but I was making do. Crankiness level at zero. I logged in and....stuff no workie. We have installer software that puts the latest versions of our in house apps on our machines and it opened to run but then just stopped. I called my pal Andrea who's the expert and sh...

My Aunt Joan sent me this game where you try to match the beer bottle shape to the brand. It's been around a while but it's amusing. Despite my vast experience with beer, I only got five right the first time through. Oh well, more practice is clearly needed

Another Chick Lit, this one by Johanna Edwards. This was a pretty good book. The heroine, a size 18 woman, goes on a reality show called From Fat to Fabulous. In addition to the drama of being on the show, she has to deal with her internet/phone relationship with a guy in England who thinks she's a size 4. The stuff from being on the show seems pretty accurate based on my brief forays into reality TV viewing and her description of life as a 'fat' girl is dead on. A couple of things she talks about are shopping at Lane Bryant and how big women don't order heavy meals in restaurants because the server will judge them. Great summer beach book.

I get a lot of crap about how dirty my car gets. Sugar Daddy is always on me and even Crime Dog busted my chops for it. There are two reasons why I hold out on washing it, though. The first is, because I live in the sticks, I have to drive by construction every day. That puts a nice coat of dust on the car that can't be avoided. The second reason is out of concern for my fellow Phoenicians. See, when I do break down and get the car washed it guarantees that within two days we'll get rain. Not the nice, heavy rain that actually cleans everything and helps with the drought. Nope, it's the spitting, dirty rain that leaves your car looking like you put a tan leopard print design on it. So, really, it's because I care that it's dirty. This weekend, I pulled a major idiot stunt. I was coming off the 202 where it ends at Arizona and took the right turn too fast and too wide. Boom! I slid, errr, slammed right into the median curb with my front left tire. It was as they say ...

Lucky you! You are a BOMBSHELL AMONG BOMBSHELLS, Marilyn Monroe. You are the ultimate woman. You've got style, class, sex appeal and most of all "the look". You are every man's dream girl, no matter what era. You're the essence of everything feminine and sexy, but are a little ditzy at times. All you need is some red lipstick and some Chanel #5 and you've got it made. Watch Marilyn float across the screen in "The Seven Year Itch" to see how a little bit of body language goes a long way! Who is your inner bombshell? brought to you by Quizilla I wish! I don't think this result came out quite right... Also lifted this one from Etherealgirl .

Harry Potter Personality Quiz by Pirate Monkeys Inc. I've scored as an ENFJ previously but I think I'm good with being Molly. She's the one who tries to keep everyone and everything going. I found this via Etherealgirl .

One of my book club buds, Brooke, has been telling me how great Diana Gabaldon's Outlander books are. She said she just can't put them down. I put them on my 'read some day' list but hadn't gotten any further than that. Then, my friend Andrea started reading them and became just as obsessed as Brooke so I figured I needed to check it out. Wow! They are right about not being able to put the book down. I was a half hour late getting to golf because I absolutely had to finish Outlander (the first in the series). Here's the gist of it: The year is 1945 and a young nurse and her husband are getting to know each other again during a Scotland trip. WWII had kept them apart for several years. They visit a small scale Stonehedge like circle of stones and, when she touches one of the stones, she's transported back to 1743. She immediately gets involved with the local clans who are suspicious that she's an English spy, falls in love with a young Scott, gets capt...

Whew!!! We can all breathe a big sigh of relief. Here's what Doug Bennett had to say about Schooner Wharf Bar: The Schooner Wharf Bar has reopened it's Dog Bar. It is now the parking place next to the stage on Lazy Lane. We have a shade tree, water, a table and chairs, and a place to hitch your dog (no food allowed in the Dog Bar). ALSO The city ONLY wants to tear down the concrete block building at Schooner's. It is a place that most of you do not visit and consist of a pool table and a big screen TV. In it's place would be a nicer building with offices, freezer, and restrooms. It would be a very sad world without Schooner Wharf so this is great news.

I’m golfing in this season’s first Bunker Golf Tournament tomorrow at Kierland Golf Club . They’re always great events and I either played in or volunteered for all but one of them last season so I’m really looking forward to it. I jumped online to sign up when registration opened because this course sells out fast and was thrilled that it’s only costing $52. Awesome! But wait, what’s this about a 12:30 PM shotgun start!?!? In freaking so hot people are actually dying weather! WTF? But, it is for charity so I was prepared to load up on the agua and sweat out a few pounds for the cause. Then, I read a little further and saw they have air conditioned carts. Air conditioned carts! How cool is that? (No pun intended.) I can’t wait to see how they work and if they help cool you off at all. Golf carts with gizmos are so fun. I love the GPS that shows you the hole, the yardage and sometimes even suggests which club to use. I go through the same routine at each shot. Check out the GPS, think ...

I would probably have never read Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit by Daniel Quinn if someone hadn't picked it for book club. Here's the premise. A guy answers an ad that says "Teacher seeks pupil to save the world. Apply in person." The guy goes to an office and finds a gorilla who mind speaks to give him lessons on how to save the earth. Ummm, 'kay. The lessons are just to illustrate how man is ruining the planet because he thinks he owns it. There's no constructive answer on how to stop this other than 'tell everyone the message'. I was not so thrilled with the book and most of our group felt disheartened after reading it as the message we got out of it was 'we're doomed'.

I'm a little late on this story as most of my fellow bloggers have posted on the passing of James Doohan. Scotty was by far my favorite Star Trek character...though Jean Luc Picard was a close second, mostly because I had the hots for him. Besides being the ultimate role model for IT people (he was the best at lying about how long something will take to do. I've got my own formula: estimate how long something will actually take to do, multiply that by 3 and then double the total - the result is how long you tell the user it will be before something is done), Scotty was a cool dude. A fighter, a drinker and a man in love with his hardware. And by the latter, I mean the Enterprise, not something dirty. On a personal note, as James Doohan and my Dad got older, they started to resemble each other. Short, round, graying, mustache...if you didn't know better, you could almost swear it was my Dad on the screen saving the day in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.

Sugar Daddy started watching Average Joe: The Joes Strike Back in the living room. Oy vey. Time for me to leave before I got hooked. I went into my office and started watching my version of reality TV, 2005 World Series of Poker . Unfortunately, to refill my wine I had to pass through the living room. Dang it, I had to stop and watch not only part of Average Joe , I got sucked into the drama of Big Brother. It's almost enough to make me give up the evil alcohol...almost.

This is a great book! The author is Inman Majors and his style is a cross between Carl Hiaasen's and Wastnawa 's. By that I mean he has kooky characters and ignores punctuation rules (though he does use paragraphs). The main character is a divorced and somewhat depressed lawyer whose Dad is the Governor of Alabama and who was a bad childhood TV actor on a Lassie type show. The kooky characters include his C&W stepmom, his TV Dad, a bunch of political cronies and his bar buddies (he spends a lot of time in bars which probably had a lot to do with why I liked him). I could tell you more but you should just read the book. It's a hoot!

Resistance by Barry Lopez was another impulse library pick up. It's made up of fictional essays from various people going underground after some nefarious government agency targets them (Homeland Security symbolism, perhaps). This group of intellectuals got together and decided the government needs to get back to basics like life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and apparently that didn't go over well. The uniting theme appeared to be pointless as most of the stories were just 'hey, here's my life and isn't it oh, so intellectually interesting and ooh, the places I've been?' stories. There were a lot of big words (or perhaps I should say multi-syllabic in keeping with the writing style?) that seemed to be there to impress. Eh, I know a lot of big words so they didn't do much for me. The most interesting aspect of the stories was that the gender of the write wasn't revealed until part way in. Made it kinda fun to test my stereotypical responses....

For those fellow bloggers who drop into my site (thanks!), here's a survey to take. Here's the text on it taken directly from the site: The ultimate purpose of this survey is to analyze the difference between those who have well read or growing blogs and those who don't, but want to. There is a lot of advice about how to blog successfully, but so far I haven't really seen any thorough analysis of the blogging habits of the various bloggers. The more bloggers who participate, the more accurate the survey will be so encourage others to fill out the survey.

Usually, I'm one of those people who love the heat and can't wait to get out of the A/C and warm up. Heck, I even carry a sweater in the summer for when I go into restaurants. Not today. The radio guy said it was only 106 out but I think he's a big, fat liar. It is so freaking hot out...and in. I stopped off at the grocery store and to get gas on the way home from work. Big mistake. Most Arizonans know you shouldn't run errands until after 8 PM for fear of spontaneous combustion but I was out of wine. Clearly, I had no choice but to hit the store. By the time I got home, I was a ball of sweat. It's not that I was overdressed. I had on a bra, underwear and a short one-piece dress. Really not a lot of clothes. When I got home, I dumped the dress and the bra and changed into a tank and shorts and put my hair up in quite the unattractive ponytail. And I wonder why I don't have a boyfriend...but I digress as I often do. I'm still a sweatball. Sugar Daddy doesn...

I didn't think my Harry Potter book would ever come! I checked the mail at 10:30, 11:45 and 12:40. No book. I'd gone to Target in the morning and saw the books on sale and debated buying one and returning it...but, that would be wrong. Finally, I got it at 2 PM, just in time to leave for a party up in south Flagstaff. Honestly, only Muggles would have a party on the day the new Potter book came out. I only had time to check the page count (200 less than the less book) and read the inside of the jacket before I got to the party. I got home a little before 3 AM and started reading. I didn't get far before I decided I was just too tired to read. So, after having the book for 12 hours, I'd only read 4 pages! I was wide awake by 7:30 AM and dove into the book. After taking a few breaks for a shower and a little nap, I was done this afternoon. Awesome book, but too short! Quite a few plot twists and a surprise ending that I won't give away. It'll be interesting to hea...

One of my favorite baseball players, Rafael Palmeiro, got his 3,000th hit yesterday. You can read all about it here . I've been a Palmeiro fan since his Cubs days (OMG, that's 20 years ago!). I've always had a thing for first basemen, Palmeiro, Dave Magadan, Keith Hernandez (hmmmm, Keith Hernandez) and now Chad Tracy. Maybe it's because you get some great butt views when they're holding runners on first. But, I digress a bit. Palmeiro, to me, is a worthy role model athlete. He's not a showboater, he just goes out and gives his all every game. You never hear about him throwing tantrums or snubbing fans. And, I don't believe Canseco's doping allegations about him either. He's consistently put up good numbers through his career and he's always had the same physique, unlike Giambi, Bonds and the like who are suddenly bigger or smaller because of a 'change in diet' or a 'new workout program'. The Cubs have always been my team ...

I made Sugar Daddy stop at the mailbox on the way home so I could clean it out and make sure there's plenty of room for Harry. Do you think it would be obsessive to camp out next to it tomorrow until my book gets here?

Sugar Daddy and I took Steven to lunch yesterday for his birthday. He was very excited when I gave him his present, his very own iPod mini. Being Steven, he had to complain that it was green and not black. SD told him it didn't come in black, that he was an ungrateful expletive deleted and that he should give it back. Yeah, he didn't complain about anything after that. Well, not much. He is Steven, after all. We went to Rosita's, a good local Mexican food place by work. We were at a table and they were on either side of me so I had a clear view of the restaurant. Unfortunately, there was a clear view of me. This guy across the way kept staring at me. He was sitting with someone so it wasn't like he was just looking around to be entertained. I couldn't tell if he was trying to look up my skirt or what but it just made me unfcomfortable. I finally told SD and Steven and they checked the guy out and busted him looking over several times. They both agreed that he was c...

Find out which character from The Simpsons you are most like at: http://www.matthewbarr.co.uk/simpsons/ . No surprise that I'm Lisa, the brainy do-gooder who wants everyone to get along and follow the rules. I am big on rules.

I finished rereading the last Harry Potter book tonight so I'm ready for the new one come Saturday. I can hardly wait!!!

It’s Steven’s 22nd birthday today. It doesn’t seem that long ago that I was looking at his little gnome-like baby face and trying to decide what to name him. Since today is also Bastille Day, I thought about naming him Jean Claude. But, we’re not French so that would have been just silly. I also thought Brewster would be a cool name, especially when he was in college and everyone could call him Brewski. Brewster would have been just silly, too, but I still like it. I actually had Patrick or Justin picked out and decided whichever one he looked more like would be it. However, he didn’t look like either name. Probably should have been the first clue that he was not going to conform to what I wanted for the rest of our lives. Finally, I decided to reverse my Dad’s name, Charles Stephen, and go with Steven Charles. I gave him the easier spelling, mostly because I didn’t want kids to call him Step Hen, especially since he was going to be stuck with Pfister (a name no one can spell ...

There was a break in the Harry Potter reading (only 200 pages left!) tonight as I went to a previously scheduled GNO (Girls Night Out). I was scheduled to meet two gal pals at Ajo Al's at 4:30ish. At noon, I was asking Sugar Daddy to drop me off there as I was sooooo done with work. Alas, he did not though my liver thanks him. We shared some of Ajo Al's awesome queso dip and some brewskis and chatted about girlie things (boys and babies were hot topics). Our servers (we were there long enough to have two different ones) would stop by and ask if we wanted another round. I stayed quiet as it's well documented that my answer to that question is 99.9% of the time "Yes, please and thank you". But, they're both married chicks with husbands to go home to so I let them decide. It was pretty much a "yes" until 9 when we called it a night. They're both programmers so we talked shop as well. They could totally relate to my 'server changing its d...

I don't have a lot of time for posting this week because I'm trying to jam a re-read of Harry Potter, The Order of Phoenix into this week before the next book comes out on Saturday. Feel free to add your own 'gawd, you're a big nerd' comments.

Cathy, Jeff, Groove and Pab. Apparently, Groove had no picks for Jeff and Jeff was pretty bitter about it.

Friday night, the Arizona Parrot Head Club had our annual night at the dog races. It's always fun and a great event for socializing. I usually have a winning technique at the dog races. For some reason, after studying all of the stats (down to the sire and dam's names), I can usually pick the second place dog. Never the first place though. So, I make my $2 bet to Place and end up with $2 or $3 profit if I'm lucky. That didn't work so well for me on Friday. I couldn't win for the life of me. It didn't help that Annette was raking in the wins, either. ;-) Eric earned a new nickname, Bet B*tch, because he was kept busy cashing in Annette's winnings. Finally, Don Page gave me a pick in the ninth race, KGB Alice To Go. He told me to pick it to place and I went up to make my standard $2 bet. But, I got into the line where the woman behind the window has cerebral palsy and I only had a $10 bill. I don't think she can make change - you have to put your money dir...

Effing Junior won the race today and I don't even care. That is nearly unbelievable considering how much I don't care for him. I was just so glad that Jimmie came in third after losing a lap when one of his tires was going down. What a comeback! He ran a great race and extended his points lead over Biffle who scares me. I think he's the biggest threat Jimmie has this season. On a tangent of sorts, TiVoing the race makes it so tough. I left part way through to spend the afternoon and dinner with my Mom (Happy Birthday, Mom!) and came home to watch the rest of the race. It's great to fast forward through the commercials but I get so stressed when Jimmie runs into trouble or makes a good run that I want to fast forward through it to see how it comes out but that's cheating. Tonight, I actually had to put the remote down and sit on my hands for the last 20 laps.

It's Saturday night and I'm staying home with my planned activity being reading. It seems like I'm doing a lot of reading lately (I'm two book reports behind) and I started thinking "WTF? Do I have no life?" Well, the answer is yes, and no. I have a lot more time to read since the TV season is over (which means I don't have a life because I used to spend my time watching TV). But, I'm still filling my social calendar almost as much as I used to so I guess that's a positive. I say almost because I have been trading potential nights out for carpooling to work. If only I could find someone on this end of the earth to hang out with at a local watering hole, I'd be all set.

Yep, it's another job blog... Thursday night, our backup drive on our main server choked. The tape got stuck, it was grinding, it wouldn't allow any writes. Pretty much, it was done. We got service in on Friday afternoon and they allegedly fixed it but to get the server to see the drive, we needed to reboot the box. Rebooting means kicking everyone off - our web users, telecommuters, retail stores, sales and support folks. I found out at 3:30 and, since I'm the DBA, I got to make the call on when to take it down. Now, my first thought was "Screw everyone and let's take it down now and be done with it." But, I decided we should wait until 5:30 since most people would be gone for the day. 5:30 is when I had planned on leaving for the Dog Park where I was expecting 45 Parrot Heads to join me for the evening. I really didn't want to be hanging around at work but, hey, I have to earn my salary somehow. I planned for a quick exit, though. I changed into my short...

I didn't go read my book. I went into my office and watched the World Poker Tour final championship. It's my version of reality TV. I promise that I will go read my book now, though.

Big Brother started tonight and Sugar Daddy was freaking that he didn't have it set up on TiVo yet so he might miss something. Sigh . As soon as I get done with this post, I'm bailing from the living room and going somewhere to read a book. That will make SD very, very happy.

We love Rick! Pab, Sandy and Me. Doona's frowny for some reason. Rick looks pretty good for 55!

First off, I have to tell you I was amazed that Rick Springfield is 55. Dr. Noah Drake is old! He still looks pretty good, though. Pabla called me on Saturday and said Doona (Pab's sister) scored some free tix to the Rick Springfield show at the Ft. McDowell casino. While I had been looking forward to a Saturday night at home (sad, I know) I figured, what the heck? He's always good for an entertaining show. We met up at the casino and headed into the show which was really heading out to the show as it was in the parking lot. Pab and Sandy (our fourth) went on a beer run and as I turned to watch them, I saw my book club bud, Ann, walking about one foot behind Pab. They were both clueless (and they do know each other). It cracked me up. I called Ann's cell and said "Are you having fun at the concert?" She and her friends came up and sat with us. This town is too small! I just know that at any point when I'm misbehaving, I'll turn around and someone I know wi...

A group of us caught the latest performance in The Downtown Chamber Series. These bi-monthly events are in small art spaces in the winter and at The Phoenix Art Museum in the summer. There were five performers for this event playing the viola, violin, cello, piano, double bass and a tenor singing one song. The double bass was an awesome instrument. I'd never heard one before and Mike Kazepides was really good. He did a solo segment with three pieces. In the second piece, he somehow made it sound like a bagpipe and the third piece, Rabbath's Equation was magnificent. During intermission, we scooted out to catch a quick look at the Surrealism Exhibit currently featured at the museum. It's not really my cup of tea but I did appreciate that I got to see two Chagals, a Kahlo and a Degas among the works. The second act was all Schubert and was very well done. The musicians are mostly from the Phoenix Orchestra so they're all very talented and skilled. Great show and I covere...

Bruce Campbell has made a career out of B movies and SciFi TV shows. His credits include Evil Dead, The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr., The Adventures of Hercules and Xena, Warrior Princess. This is his second book and it's a fictional tale with Campbell cast as himself in the main character role. He's making a Mike Nichols movie with Richard Gere and Renee Zellweger and his B Movie instincts/training set them all down a path that turns a romantic comedy into a failed action flick. Campbell's research for his first A Movie role takes him across the country and lands him in several outlandish events (including a couple of hilarious run-ins with the Secret Service). The ending is a hoot. This was a really funny book and I loved Campbell's style and all of the little goofy graphics that were included with the text.

If you're not into Chick Lit, read no further as Clare Naylor's latest book is just that. British Chick Lit to boot. The protagonist is a youngish painter of animal portraits in London called Kate Disney. Kate's trying to get over a bad boy boyfriend whom all of her friends loathe but to whom she's completely addicted. Into Kate's life appears French actress Mirabelle Moncur, a sex symbol from the 60s who's still got it and wants to show Kate that Kate's got it , too. The two form an unlikely friendship, our heroine makes a bunch of stupid choices (common for the genre) but everyone does live happily ever after. This was a perfect book to read on a lazy holiday afternoon.

Morgan Spurlock wrote this after his documentary Super Size Me came out to much accord. He covers a lot of the same material as the movie but adds some behind the scenes anecdotes and a lot more research results. Spurlock continues his attack on McDonald's and the whole fast food industry with a lot more data. One thing I found interesting is he had an independent lab test some of McDonald's items for their food values (calories, fat, etc.). Turns out the figures McDonald's post on their website are significantly lower (and therefore, healthier) than the independent tests showed. He also delves more into school lunch programs and the increasing availability of soda and candy machines on campus. Spurlock's got a great writing style with a lot of snarky comments (sorta like mine only he's getting paid to do it, damn him!). Excuse the pun, but there's a lot of food for thought in this book and I found it fascinating.

I got this quiz from The Gun-Toting Liberal . You can take the test here . I'm an ENFJ - Extroverted iNtuituve Feeling Judging. Here's what it says about my type (I really like the 'tremendous charisma' part but I'm not too happy being in the same group as Ronald Reagan and Ross Perot): ENFJs are the benevolent 'pedagogues' of humanity. They have tremendous charisma by which many are drawn into their nurturant tutelage and/or grand schemes. Many ENFJs have tremendous power to manipulate others with their phenomenal interpersonal skills and unique salesmanship. But it's usually not meant as manipulation -- ENFJs generally believe in their dreams, and see themselves as helpers and enablers, which they usually are. ENFJs are global learners. They see the big picture. The ENFJs focus is expansive. Some can juggle an amazing number of responsibilities or projects simultaneously. Many ENFJs have tremendous entrepreneurial ability. ENFJs are, by definition, J...

...you come home on Saturday night and the Sunday paper is already in your driveway.