Can Openers: They're Not Just for Cans Anymore

Anybody here read Wired magazine? You know that "How To" section last month that gave this super helpful tip on opening those electronics blister packaging?

Scissors and steak knives are dangerous, they said. Use a can opener, they said. Just clamp down on the edge and start cranking, they said.

How convenient that I learned this, I thought, after puchasing a new ear piece for my cell phone (because my previous ear piece went kaput about 2 hours after the California Hands Free Law went into effect).

I have one of those hand cranking can openers, so I just clamped down on the edge of the packaging and started cranking:

Can you see how the goddam can opener I mangled it? You can click on the pictures for a closer look.

So I busted out the scissors and managed to avoid bloodshed:

What a bunch of crap that advice was. Did anybody else see that handy tip and try it? Well, I was so angry that I decided to destroy my can opener, because what good is it if it can't open that stubborn plastic packaging?

Of course I accidentally stabbed myself 14 times trying to mangle the bastard that mangled my packaging, but I think it learned its lesson before I threw it in the trash back in the drawer.


* * * SHOUT OUTS * * *

You may want to hire Yankee Drawl to write your letters for you. The ones you've been mentally addressing to all the assholes interesting people in your life. The ones you've been wanting to maim and/or shove slivers up underneath their toenails gently remind of common courtesy. Her latest post entitled "Dear Y'All" might help relieve some of your own stress you've experienced lately, or just have a good laugh at her own misfortune. And a big THANK YOU for adding Nanny Goats In Panties to Yankee Drawl's Reading Material (aka blogroll).

Just A Girl has her own issues with false advertising. Her post about Bounty paper towels will save you the trouble and the money, and it might have you laughing as well. And when was the last time you used "Salmonfreakingella" in a sentence? Nanny Goats In Panties is honored to be a part of her "Just A Bunch Of Blogs" blogroll.

What Part of "Squalor" Don't You Understand?

I would ask that you not get me started on this whole housing crisis thing, except that I've already decided to get started without you. Come with me in the Wayback Machine to 2005, when gas was still less than three bucks a gallon but a 2000 square foot home was pushing $450K, in the country's fastest-growing, least desirable suburb: Elk Grove, California. Ask anyone from the Sacramento area who changes their underwear every day, if they had their druthers, would they live in Elk Grove? Who wants to put "Elk Grove" in the real estate search box when the nation's headlines about the poor city lead with "Squalor"?

And I don't want to hear, "Well it used to be nice." "Used to be" doesn't let you sleep at night. "Used to be" doesn't keep you from getting shot while pulling out of Chili's. "Used to be" doesn't stop the house from across the street, and another one around the corner from becoming pot farms.

We held out as long as we could. Our tight-knit neighborly little court began to disperse, saying the neighborhood was going downhill. Plus, in 2004 and 2005, they were panic-buying like everyone else, buying bigger McMansions before they were priced out of the market. Of course they exacerbated the blight of the street by abandoning us, moving out so fast that all we could make out were elbows and assholes in the dust. And everyone who moved in after them were loud, rude, obnoxious, wouldn't speak to us, etc... Eventually our annoyance and fear won over our laziness and we moved.

Now, by "going downhill", do not mistake for a minute that I mean anything racial. In fact, when we were a happy little party-having group, I was the only white girl. Well, actually there were two of us, but the other one high-tailed it out of there because she saw the writing on the wall long before we did.

No, I'm talking about class. I'm talking about behavior. I'm talking about moving two or three families into one house and parking your 12 cars all over the court leaving no room whatsoever for our own guests. I'm talking about letting your yard go. I'm talking about leaving your front door open all day long while your unsupervised children run around half naked and barefoot in the middle of the street, screaming until well after midnight.

So, late to the party, we finally gave in and sold our house. Here is a picture of it just before it sold in November 2005. Please note the green and well-maintained lawn.



A few months after that we began to hear rumors of our old house going into foreclosure. More than once.

Last week, my niece happened to ride by it and snapped a picture from her phone. It's the one on the left...



What is that, a "For Sale, Sort Of" sign?

This is the backyard when we moved out in 2005...



I'm too chicken to climb the fence to see what it looks like now.

When we left, we bought a bigger McMansion. In Elk Grove. But that's another long story.

One year later, we moved again, out of Elk Grove and into Sacramento, which is another long story, one that involves bending WAY over.

Wishful thinkers, manipulative speculators, and real estate talking heads are now going to be calling the bottom of the Sacramento market every week for the next 2-3 years. We'll just be calling it "rent".

* * * W H A T     E L S E * * *

My book review of Driving With Dead People by Monica Holloway is up at Curled Up With a Good Book. You can click on the links in the previous sentence or right here if you wish to read it.

Nanny Goats in Panties wishes to thank Wendy over at wining and ironing for adding NGIP to her blog roll. Wendy joins our global network as she hails from South Africa and is "not your average desperate housewife".



Some of you may recall last week's post about the new Hands Free cell phone law. Have you seen this parody?




Please click here if you wish to rate this post on Humor-Blogs.com

Hands-Free Isn't Really

Anybody traveling via Southwest Airlines this holiday weekend seated near a screeching child who can't seem to get enough peanuts will be strapped into a flying death trap festooned with red white and blue pieces of heart-shaped paper and ribbons...

Yeah, I can't wait until they allow the insecure Hollywood wannabe behind you in seat 28C to blow hard into a cell phone for the entire flight. He'll blather on about this film deal or that film deal at the top of his lungs, repeating himself because the poor sap on the other end can't hear what Joe Hotair says half the time because the reception hops from one cell tower to another every 3 minutes.

"YEAH ... I'M ON THE PLANE!.... I SAID I'M ON THE PLANE!....ANYWAY, I THINK BRIDGET WILL PAIR NICELY WITH MATTHEW BRODERICK... ASK BILLY BOB IF HE'S READ THE SCRIPT YET... PEACE OUT.... I SAID, PEACE OUT! "

This is the same yahoo you will be stuck behind in traffic on Sunset Blvd. who hasn't quite succumbed to the new Hands Free law. He drives erratically, narrowly avoiding the death of others around him, while a cop pulls YOU over for a dead tail light.

But I'm here to bitch about something entirely different.

One of the more annoying things I own is the ear piece for my cell phone. I'm in a no-win situation with the frickin' thing in that I can't stand talking for more than 5 minutes on any phone without a headset of some sort because my elbow and my neck start bugging me. But I hate using the ear piece I have because it takes forever to untangle the mess created by stuffing it in my pocket, or my purse, or my backpack, or wherever I stuffed it last, then stick it in my ear while fumbling with the the rubber thingy to go around the back of my ear, and then plug the cord into my cell phone. And I only have that luxury if I'm the one placing the call.

If someone calls me and the phone rings in my car, I invariably hang up on the caller trying to scramble with the phone, shove in the ear piece, avoid pressing the answer button until the ear piece is snugly in my ear, and trying not to soar off a cliff while appeasing the caller who twenty years ago would have to settle for waiting until I got home.

I don't get called enough to justify sticking the damn thing in my ear "just in case" and ride around getting the cord all tangled up in the gear shift knob and the steering wheel.

Get a blue tooth ear piece, you say? I did. Wanna hear about that too? I bought this damn thing that came with vague-at-best instructions that did not seem to match its actual function. It became immediately useless in my travels because it has a battery that requires recharging. And you have to remember to do it every day, or else the one day you actually need it, the battery has died and now you can't use this stupid thing that by the way doesn't even feel like it will stay in your ear. It just loosely hangs on like an earring and you know it's going to drop on the ground any minute and you don't want to walk around with that thing in your ear either because it doesn't look "cool" like everyone else's designer blue neon-lit hardware that appears to mold to the user's ear. They don't spend half their time in line at Starbucks twisting and cramming at it to get it to "STAY GODDAMMIT ALREADY!". That's right, I have headset envy, so what?

And you have to remember to pack the recharger on your trip and for someone like me who travels a lot, that is so not happening. I have enough garbage and gadgets to bring back and forth with me every trip. Over time I have duplicated rechargers so that I don't have to carry all that crap. I didn't want to buy ANOTHER charger for ANOTHER gadget. Enough already!

MrMudPuppy said he saw more people hands-not-free on July 1, perhaps out of rebellion. I can understand that. I stopped wearing my seat belt as soon as a law was going to take effect two months later that required the use of seatbelts. Here I was, using my seatbelt because I was concerned about safety, but as soon as the government decided to take away my choice, I was going to live on the edge as long as possible, because I could. Never mind that it was insane and unsafe, it was the principle of the thing in my young and stubborn mind. Oh sure, on Day 1 of the seatbelt law, I honored and obeyed, because I'm a complete chicken when it comes to getting into possible trouble. But I squeezed out every drop of choice up until the day - never mind that I was risking my life.

And then there were people like my Dad and stepmother, who never wore their seatbelts - I don't know why. They must have figured they were above the law, or because of their profession, they could get tickets written off all the time because they knew a lot of cops. Funny how they fraternized with law enforcement, and I don't know any cops. Not one single one. I can't relax for a second if I see one nearby. As soon as I see a pohleece, I check myself for contraband, miles-per-hour, guilty facial expression, whatever I could possibly be busted for, even though I'm innocent, but for some reason, I'm unreasonably paranoid about winding up in the klink.

Maybe because I haven't spent much time with cops, I don't think of them as real people and I have no idea how to behave around them. I spend my whole life trying to avoid any contact with them because I know the minute I'm in some strip club that gets raided one night, a comedy of errors will ensue and I'll be shuffled off to prison for some beauracratic mix-up that takes years of paperwork to straighten out while I toil away in the prison library writing my life story about how I was screwed by the justice system.

But I was talking about my dad and stepmom's anti-seatbelt attitude. But that was years ago. Now it's just my dad, who can't really see anymore, so I drive and my car will yell at you if you do not fasten your seatbelt, so he no longer has that choice.

But before that I was talking about the new hands-free cell phone law. And the conspiracy under foot that requires us to purchase lousy ear pieces designed to work like tires and light bulbs where we are forced to replace them frequently. God forbid they design it to last to our satisfaction, or stay charged for more than 3 hours, or not require batteries at all.

But before that, I was talking about red, white and blue, and basically, I just wanted to wish you a Happy Fourth of July.

Peace out.

* * *

NGIP would like to throw a big fat shout out to Jennifer at Playgroups Are No Place For Children for linking to Nanny Gotas the other day, driving ridiculous traffic to this site. That link also prompted Vicki over at Creekside to link to us and add NGIP to her blog roll (WOO HOO!).

And.... THANK YOU to Apathy Lounge for adding us to her Insane Clown Posse blog roll. It's an honor and a privilege to be labeled as Insane, as well as a Clown!

Please click on this Humor Blogs link to see where Nanny Goats currently ranks.

Dear Termite: Congrats on that Bug Of The Year Award

Doesn't it seem like only yesterday when I was showing you all the bugs I had in the house?

Hey, how many of you remember this picture from six months ago?





Yeah, that was when it was our turn to be the neighborhood pariah, kinda like in the 70s when your kid got lice or he came out of the closet: "Don't go near him, Timmy!" Other mothers slinked past you, clutching their own children and staring down their noses with disgust because it would NEVER happen to THEM.

So anyway, my condo building in L.A. got gassed in January. And we paid a bazillion dollars for a SIX year warranty. Which was actually kinda cool because it also killed all the other dang bugs hanging out and exhibiting themselves like flashers every couple of days.

But then LAST WEEK, one of the neighbors in our five-unit building found termites coming out of a pipe in her ceiling, and promptly called Terminix. They came out and said something along the lines of:

"Oh, those are subterRAINian termites. We treated you for the OTHER kind of termites in January. Yeah, THESE termites are different. And for half a bazillion dollars (a discount, since we were just here in January) we can come out and take care of these NEW and DIFFERENT little critters. And for just a few hundred dollars more, you can get the FOUR year warranty, blah, blah, blah..."

and THAT ladies and germs, is how they get you.

Tune in next season when Terminix discovers a new species: the STRATOSPHERE termites.


* * *

Nanny Goats would like to thank Charlene over at So, What You're Saying Is... for adding NGIP to her blog roll. She's a fellow Humor-Blogs member (and a high school drama teacher) who taught me that Loonie is a Canadian dollar, which as you know, is equivalent to about 14 of our American dollars.

And speaking of Humor-Blogs, please click on this Humor-Blogs link to check our current ranking. A click is a vote for Nanny Goats!

Pitchforks and Torches and Mob Scenes, Oh My

Paperlessness is next to Godliness, or something like that. In a world where you risk your life and limb with bloody paper cuts and letter opener stab wounds, you do what you can to reduce the paperage.

I no longer watch how high my check numbers climb (unlike my pageload views), because I'm all about the online banking now. I don't want to see any more paper bills if given the option.

So when Citibank offered their "All-Electronic Program", I jumped at the chance to reduce my inbox.

This was a few months ago. And yes, I no longer receive a monthly statement in the mail. What I do keep receiving every month is a paper letter that states the following:

Your Citibank statement is now available online. This notification is part of the All-Electronic Program you enrolled in to receive your statements online only instead of in the mail.

At the end of the letter, they hope I continue to enjoy the many benefits of the All-Electronic Program.

Are they referring to the All-Electronic Program that keeps mailing me paper notifications every month? On paper? In the mail? That All-Electronic Program?

What part of "All-Electronic" replaces a statement with a different piece of paper telling me that they are no longer sending me that other piece of paper?


Any fellow Citibank cardholders interested in a consumer vigilante justice movement here?



* * *

Nanny Goats In Panties would like to ask everyone to put their hands together for June Cleaver Nirvana for two reasons:
1. For adding Nanny Goats to her blog roll, and
2. For writing an awesomely entertaining blog. Her recent post about being a fierce camper is not only hilarious, witty, and hysterical, but it's also funny.


And don't forget to click here to see how we're ranking on Humor-Blogs. A click is a vote for Nanny Gotas!

Coming This Summer to a Blog Near You: The Remodel

My bathroom hasn't been cleaned in months. You may or may not be asking why. Well, ever since demolition was scheduled in February, I keep thinking: what's the point of scraping all this mildew off the peeling walls and what's this black gunk all over the grout, and is that a dead mouse in the back of the cabinet?

The contractor (let's call him George because at this point, I still like him) and I agreed on the terms. I ordered and paid for all the materials. Each time I see the corosion on the fixtures, I figure why go to all that trouble when I'm only here one week out of the month and he's just about to demolish it all? And whenever there's a debate about cleaning anything, I win hands down every time.

OK, I haven't exactly paid for the materials yet. I was able to finance it for no interest, no payments for twelve months. Twelve months! And I've only had to call their customer service once so far to have them change the terms BACK to twelve months after I discovered a recent statement suddenly read six months.

Between my travel schedule and the contractor's workload and our miscommunication and his taking on other projects when I thought he was supposed to show up at my place, this thing keeps getting postponed. Twice now, I've had to call the interior designer and tell her to reschedule the delivery of all the new materials only to have the warehouse call me days later to confirm delivery for the day that was supposed to be postponed.

I thought for sure I would have a brilliant Consumer From Hell story to tell you by now, but the project has been postposed until the end of next month. So, I apologize for not having anything to complain about on this remodel front.

Just wait until that first swing of the sledge hammer. I'm sure something will go wrong by then.


* * *

Nanny Goats and Panties would like to thank Boondocks Ramblings for mentioning us the other day:

I got kicked off Humor Blogs for whatever reason and yet something called Nanny Goats in Panties is ranked in the top 30 blogs?

Kicked Off? Eek! Help prevent Nanny Goats from getting kicked off by going to Humor-Blogs to keep apprised of our ranking.

Culture, Schmulture, Where's the Can?

Anybody who uses "Sacramento" and "Culture" in the same sentence is lying. Not only have I personally witnessed Sacramento citizens' lack of support of the arts (I give you Bodies Revealed), but I have also been a victim of its steadfast squashing of any hope to stir up interest in such matters.

Why, just recently, I was visiting an art gallery and took a liking to their featured artist. I thought it would be courteous to ask if I could photograph the art for my blog. You know, show the world that Sacramento could actually have some cool stuff.



But when I asked the woman in the rear of the gallery about the art, she kept her back to me the entire time, stirring her cauldron. Her hesitation to grant me a decent audience with her majesty dripped with an attitude so thick with part seething judgment and part bitter NYC MOMA wannabe, that my intentions quickly transformed from a glowing review of the art gallery itself on an internationally popular blog (hello Dublin!) to a review that is fighting the urge to name names as well as call them. Let me warn you now, I do not succeed entirely. She had the audacity to act as if WE were the local yokels and SHE was not. Never mind the fact that I was accompanied by a woman from Marin County (which is NOT Sacramento in case you were wondering) who used to be the coordinator of THE largest art festival in the country.

As any writer hell-bent on revenge would do, I present to you an open letter to that person in that unnamed (so far, anyway) establishment.

Dear Art Gallery Beeyotch,

You had a chance to promote your gallery, yourself, and the potential to sell a few pieces of art. But you chose instead, for some unknown reason, to judge my friend and me. Was it something we wore? Something we didn't wear? Not that you looked. You are clearly a bitter, bitter woman who either flunked out of Sotheby's Art Academy, or couldn't even get accepted and have had to settle for managing a gallery in a substandard city that is beneath you. And that bitterness shows.

I would think that if your job is to SELL art, that you might spend some time trying to SELL that art. If you think people from Sacramento are lame and uncultured, why not try educating them so they can appreciate what you have to offer. When we asked you if the artist was local and had a website, you sneered and said that he might, but you wouldn't help us with that information. I tried to take this as a poor attempt at humor, and forgave you this blunder, and presumed this meant that if we wanted to buy his art, we would have to buy it through you, but you did everything in your power to prevent us from becoming interested in purchasing from you. You never stopped once to turn around and look me in the eye and engage me. I know if I came in again next week, you would not recognize me from the week before.

You know nothing about customer service or sales. When a potential buyer comes in and brings up the possibility that an artist must have a website because it's probably a great tool for promoting and selling their own work, you do not say, "Well, not really."

And you do not hire assistants who simply mirror your ability to contradict the customer. I explained to your mini-me, that I know how some places forbid photography. I was trying to demonstrate a courtesy to you and the artist. But instead, your "helper" used it as an opportunity to condescendingly tell me how a true art appreciator would never be so gauche as to photograph someone's paintings and besides, the pictures on THEIR website would be far superior to anything I could take (was she referring to the gauchely taken ones or the non-gauchely taken ones on their website?) Clearly, I appeared inept in every way, including that of a photographer. I mean, look at this piece of shit photo... you can't even tell what it is, right?

The Persistance Of Bunnies by Mark Bryan

Do not ask me why, but I tried to engage your better half in conversation by mentioning the idea of how you couldn't photograph the Mona Lisa, and she jumped right in and said, "Yes you can." Why the hell would you continue to boldly contradict the customer like that? When was the last time you garnered a commission from THAT approach? Since she decided to take me literally and get argumentative about it, I stooped to her level and informed her that I knew for a fact, based on experience, that you were not allowed to photograph (with or without flash) the ceiling of the Sistene Chapel. I should have said "Sixteenth Chapel", just to see what she would have said. But she neither confirmed nor denied my claim. Why? Because she's never been there! So HA! I guessed I showed you and your little secretary there.

Anyway, I circled the gallery and came back to try again. I thought I might appeal to the self-centered part of you by asking what you thought of the artist, if you'd met him, what you thought of his work. Granted, you let me see one side of you I'd never seen before. Your left side. But it wasn't long before you flashed me with your back again.

Do you think Mark Bryan would appreciate such poor representation, hearing about how you refuse to talk about his paintings to someone who probably makes way more money than you, you mere docent? If you knew anything about his work, you did not demonstrate it. Your unprofessional attempt at art snobbery came across as tart snottery. You obviously had no idea who I am and how powerful my words can be when wielded against your sorry ass. I mean, my good woman, I could eat your lunch for breakfast! Dare I say, I...drink...your...milkshake!

My point here is that as long as people like you are running the art galleries in Sacramento, the cultural IQ of the area will continue to stagnate and wallow. In other words, fuck you and the tight-assed easel you rode in on.

And another thing, I hope your face freezes like that.

Sincerely Yours,
Nanny Goats

P.S. If you like something, you'll tell one friend. If you don't, you'll tell ten. If you have a blog...

So anyway, there's this new artist whose work I found compelling. He's got a bit of Dali, Alice In Wonderland, and Wizard of Oz with some clowns, robots, bunnies and politics thrown in. Do check his website out. Not only did I find the website by merely Googling his name, but also because the art gallery where I first saw his work had it, along with the artist's contact information, visibly displayed at the front of the gallery. As opposed to the back, where the "experts" are, who can't help you with that kind of information.

This here's another shitty photygraff of a painting I had tooken while scratchin' my crotch in public and spittin' on the floor while sneakin' a chug o' moonshine from the jug in mah overalls.:

Again, here is Mark Bryan's Website, since I'm so stoopit I kan't remember the shop that showed the nice pitchers, so y'all won't be able to buy nuthin' from them. Duhhhh..........What's this button do?


* * *

Nanny Goats Shout Out

A big shout out to Domestic Glamour who has so generously added Nanny Goats In Panties to its Blog Roll. Domestic Glamour's post entitled: Bathrooms are Not For Food, Drink Or Toys may find all parents nodding in sympathy.

Also, a big THANK YOU goes to WillThink4Wine for putting Nanny Goats In Panties on her list of Five Blogs That Make Her Day. Big HUGS right backatcha darlin'!

* * * The following is for NGIP Loyalists Only...This means YOU! * * *

If you've made it this far, could you extend Nanny Goats the favor of clicking on this link or the Humor-Blog logo on the left hand side of this web page? At press time, Nanny Goats is rated #88 on the site (having climbed over nearly 900 sites to get there). If we get to #50, then something faboo happens with the traffic because our posts will suddenly appear on Humor-Blogs's Home Page! Then some executive from some major movie studio like Sony discovers the awesomeness that is Nanny Goats In Panties and we're inking a screenwriting deal like THAT! And all because of you guys.

I'll Take "Weeks" for Ten Thousand, Bob

Today's blog is brought to you by the word: timeshare.

For those of you who don't know what a timeshare is, here's a brief primer, which some people pronounce "primmer" - why is that? First an advertisement appears before you as if by relentless and incessant ALLCAPS magic for a FREE TV, or a FREE DINNER CRUISE, or something else that turns out to be CRAPPY, but it's free. All you have to do is sit through a 1 hour presentation. You think, hey, I can do that. So you sit through a 2 or 3 hour presentation and then get pressured to buy a ten thousand dollar timeshare and you ultimately give in because they make it sound so cheap at 99 dollars a month for 37 years and even though the timeshare you buy is in Dusty Shithole, Kansas, you can simply exchange it for a week somewhere way more fabulous. And you have to buy the more expensive VIP red time slot so you have "more exchange power". Then you go on the crappy dinner cruise, which is really a couple of watery screwdrivers and some cold cuts and stale bread, and come back home seasick and ten thousand dollars in debt.

On top of that debt, you pay a "maintenance fee" of eight hundred some-odd dollars a year, which is more than many people pay for a week's lodging. So in case you haven't been doing the math, that's 10,000 smackers, plus the cost of financing those 10,000 smackers which on most loans would be another 10,000 smackers, plus the cost of lodging for a week, all so you can go on vacation somewhere and stay for free!

Now, you also have to pay an exchange fee with RCI or somebody for maybe $100 every year for the privilege of never getting the location you want when you want it. After a few years of aggravation, and perhaps some conclusionary analysis that the scoundrels oversell these imaginary pieces of property and that RCI is just another TicketMaster, where you're forced to pay a virtual scam artist/business model genius middleman to get in the way, you sell your schrewd investment for a cool $2,000.

THAT is a timeshare.

A certain member of my family, let's call him Dad, owns (and I use the term loosely) one of these cursed vacation-weeks-on-paper. He owns in Lake Tahoe, but we wanted to go to Hawaii. When I couldn't find one single condo in Hawaii for the next 13 months on RCI's lame online website, I called them up, because surely, I must have been doing something wrong. Some girl from India told me that Hawaii was indeed booked up and I asked her when the next anything from Hawaii was available.

"I can't look it up that way," she said. "You have to pick a location and specific week that you want."

Grrr...

"I want Hawaii in November."

"There is nothing available at that time in that location."

"Really?"

"It's a popular place. You have to book that way in advance."

"Like how way in advance?"

"Two years."

Did I mention that we have the VIP red time slot? If you want to make customer service laugh condescendingly at your feeble attempts to demand some level of importance, mention that you have the VIP red time slot. You know, for more "exchange power".

Since I can painstakingly look up more unavailable places all by myself online, I thanked her and tried to hang up, but not before she tried to sell me a 5 year renewal to RCI (because she could gladly help me with THAT transaction). Her lame online system must not have informed her that we just did one of those renewals the last time I was accosted after calling them a month ago.

Timeshares are great, if only for the guy that invented the concept and for the people who sell them. But unless you buy the very unit you wish to stay in during the same week every year, or you like to take the kids to Dusty Shithole, Kansas every year, save your pennies.

What about you? Any of you with a timeshare nightmare? Or are you one of the lucky ones that gets what you want out of it? And what do you know about Ocean City Maryland, because there's a bazillion openings there.

* * *

Nanny Goats Shout Out

Sue Doe-Nim (and her vagina) gets a big shout out for adding Nanny Goats and Panties to her blog roll. And if you don't get the vagina crack (oh, that might not be the best choice of words), check out her blog post from last Wednesday regarding such things. It's wickedly funny. And then read some more. She'll crack (good word choice this time) you up.

Hide The Clarinet Player!

Memorial Day Weekend in Sacramento brings the biggest (their words, not mine) jazz festival in the west. That's right, when we are not busy making names for ourselves trying to yank "under God" out of our daily pledge to the flag, we bring together the world's best jazz bands to Old Sac (not Old Town, you Pasadenians) and its nearby environs. And in celebration of this musical extravaganza, do you know what I do? That's right, I stay the hell away from it because my God, the crowds.

When I was a kid, it was called the Sacramento Dixieland Jazz Jubilee. Now it's called the Sacramento Jazz Jubilee. Why? Because apparently, now it's sans dixieland jazz. Which as far as I'm concerned is a crying shame. I for one, do not like standard jazz particularly, but I love dixieland jazz. It's so bouncy and happy and New Orleansy. I mean, who can listen to When The Saints Go Marching In without tapping at least three of their feet? I will listen to NPR all day long, until that blasted "trad jazz" crap comes on. Then I ferociously spin the dial over to some golf station. You know, because I'm lookin' for something that MOVES me.

I know a lot of people are of the opposite view, to whom I say: DIXIELAND-DIXIELAND-DIXIELAND. And it's because of you anti-dixites, that MY kinda music has been scraped from the playlist like the charred part from toast.

Now for all I know I'm talking out of my ass, assuming dixieland jazz is all but eradicated from the event, but when I looked at the genre of bands (traditional, zydeco, blues, etc.) guess which category was NOT on the list! So, while the Black Tuesday Jazz Band claims to play dixieland, they are listed under "classical". It's like: "OK, you play dixieland jazz? Well, we can't really put you under that, because we don't want to scare people. We'll just see who comes in and then see how it goes. You know, AFTER we get their $100."

So Dixieland jazz has been relegated to the underground. How do you like that? Secret handshakes and passwords and sunglasses and trenchcoats and "Pssst, c'mere buddy" and twenty-dollar bill-slippin' to the man in the know just to find out where you can get you some o' dat. Because as you know, you can never quite get rid of all the burnt bits, no matter how much you scrape.

May The Peace Be With You, Luke

You know those people who say "I can watch such and such a movie over and over because I see something new everytime"? Do you know why they see something new every time? I will tell you why. It is because they can't keep their big trap shut during the movie. They will buy the movie on DVD even though they've already seen it in the theatre, pissing the rest of us off who want to see it only once and want to hear every damn word the FIRST time. I pay gobs of money to see it in the theatre and for some crazy reason, expect people to shut the hell up so I can hear it. And I expect them to turn off their damn cell phones. But I guess that's like paying gobs of money for a house and expecting the neighbors to take care of their damn lawns oh don't get me started.

Anyway, my niece and I went to the movies the other night to see Death Note, which was playing all of two days (at 7:30pm only) here in Sacramento. I didn't know much about the movie, only that it was a Japanese animation movie and as it turns out, I was even wrong about that: it was live action.

As we walked toward Theatre 2, we passed a couple (or maybe they were just friends but that's not the point) who reeked of nerdiness. They were hunched-over, unkempt mouth-breathers with odd conversation oozing from their pie holes. They took turns growling and screeching and the girl said, "I like to freak people out," in a sort of Beavis and Butthead tone of voice. "It's like, my hobby."

We grabbed two seats inside and the place was full of Beavis and Buttheads, dweebs of all shapes and sizes. I was easily the oldest person there. There was a festive buzz in the theatre. These kids were FANS. A girl in the back proclaimed to all of us that it was her birthday and did people get all smart-assy on her like I expected? No, they shouted "Happy Birthday!" Someone else walked up to the front and announced something that people applauded, but I had no idea what he said.

Geeks to the left of me. Geeks to the right. I thought, This must be what it's like to go to Comic-Con or a Star Trek convention.

The first trailer came on and everyone cheered. It was an ad for an upcoming movie based on another Japanese comic book (excuse me, graphic novel [excuse me again, manga]): Bleach.

Then a commercial for some other Japanese comicy thing came on and more people cheered. The girls were woo-hoo-ing between each trailer, like giddy school girls. In fact, it seemed like there were more girls than guys in the theatre.

And then something wierd happened: the movie started and everyone shut up. For the WHOLE MOVIE. And the movie was actually good. A good premise, a good story, intriguing characters. Unfortunately, this was only Part 1, but it was still good and didn't leave me totally hanging off a cliff. And...AND...not one cell phone rang out.


So I guess if you want courteous neighbors who mow their lawns and say, "After you" at the grocery store and wave you on at 4-way stop signs, move to Nerdville.


* * *


Nanny Goats Shout Out

Nanny Goats would like to thank Tammi over at Love The Eclectic Life for adding Nanny Goats In Panties to her blog roll. She's a blogging SAHM who's new to the SAHM scene and the blogging scene, so go over and say hi and tell her Nanny Goats sent you. I'm hoping she regales us with what's got to be a large mental library of retail nightmare stories.

... and one more thing....if you haven't clicked the Top 25 logo, please do so. The rankings have reset and I'm back at the bottom. Actually, clicking here will do the same thing.

101 Degrees of Perspiration

Sacramento's heat is like a stealth bomber. Its viewfinder captures the tiny, naive people in the city below. It maps their coordinates and hears their thoughts. Thoughts like, "Oh, it's only May. Since gas prices are killing me, and I wanna be a good doobie, I'll ride my bike to work." Or: "Hey, since parking is such a pain in the wahtoosie where Sheila lives, I'll walk over there. It's only a mile. And it's only May. Lord knows, my fat ass needs the exercise." Or: "Hey it's Friday. Let's hit that weekly Concert series thing at Cesar Chavez Park."

Meanwhile, the stealth bomber locks its sights on these tiny urban dwellers with silly little notions of various outdoor activity. The entire city is in the cross hairs and click! - the heat bombs fall. Then BOOM! - the oppressive missiles crash and explode on all the unsuspecting victims, killing just about every one. Bodies are draped over bus benches, dried tongues hanging out of their dehydrated mouths. The whole city is devastated.

Luckily, though, I'm safe and locked up in my bomb shelter with the air conditioner set to 65 energy-wasting degrees.

If I had to write an open letter to Sacramento, it would look a little something like this:

Dear Sacramento,

Look, pal. It's bad enough you swelter us during the summer, and I understand you've gotten all caught up in the instant gratification craze that we all suffer from, but can't you wait a little bit longer before you pelt us with your triple digits? I mean, seriously.

Also, would it kill you to cool down sooner in the evenings? Certain event organizers (I won't name names, because I don't actually know them, but maybe they know who they are) insist on holding events outside. At 5pm!!! The hottest part of the day.

Speaking as a former long-sleeve-wearing, wool-uniform-even-in-the-summer-donning, marching member of the Sacramento Youth Band, I beseech you to cool off! I'm stuck here. Many of us are stuck here. We are all but naked before you, peeling off our wet perspiration-soaked rags, secreting salty, watery fluid from the glands in our skin - not to mention, sweating to death. We beg you, stay away from the One-oh-somethings!

And if you can't avoid the hot hot summer, could you at least wait until the goll-durned summer before we are doomed to feast in all your blistering glory? Have mercy, already!

Your loving, albeit panting citizen,
Nanny Goats In Panties

Let There Be Blight

Ahhhh, back in Sac, the little town that hasn't. Did you know Sacramento ranks #5 in the country in foreclosures? Yeah, we're pretty proud of that. I get to come back home to news stories like the one about the people who are vandalizing the homes they can't afford anymore (that they couldn't afford in the first place, actually, and now if they can't have it, no one can.)


Wishful thinkers disguised as talking heads tell us that we're close to the bottom and things should get better next year. It's amazing how the media coupled with mob mentality can be so effective in creating mass delusion. People have a short memory, and believe what they want to believe.

I'm not bitter or anything, but a few years ago flippant flippers swooped in, raped and pillaged, and scrambled out, all the while proclaiming that home prices were going to climb forever. "...and you can just get this interest-only loan with a zero down payment...." What could possibly go wrong?



And now housing market optimism hype spreads like teenage STDs.

But the fact is that there are still plenty of 3 or 5 year adjustable-rate loans that have yet to reset in 2008 and 2009, not to mention all those "liar loans" dotting the financial landscape. (For those of you who haven't fallen asleep yet, liar loans are no-doc loans or stated income loans where the borrower is simply asked to state their income, and taken at their word.)

Foreclosed homes remain vacant, and many are vandalized, creating neighborhood hazards described with words like blight, disease, and poverty. These conditions take years to recover, if they ever do. What part of all that allows the market to "turn around" by next year?

I thought blight and disease were reserved for trees. Granted, houses are made out of trees and Sacramento is the City of Trees. We should we change our motto to: Sacramento - The City of Blight and Disease (which rhymes with trees, by the way).



Kinda makes you want to bust out your AAA Travel Guide book and arrange a trip to the capitol of California right away, doesn't it? Yeah, and if you're interested we've got a McMansion or two or twelve for sale, dirt cheap. Come on down.

... IN OTHER NEWS ...

Nanny Goats would like to step off the soap box for a second to give mad props to Onedia In The Ozarks. This beautiful blog, run by the Super D Duper Miss Onedia, has been generous enough to not only link to Nanny Goats, but to also throw it into the "Laugh Out Loud" category. Thanks, Onedia!

Tidying Woes

Every six months or so, we clean the house whether it needs it or not. Some people call it "vacuuming", or "doing the dishes" and claim to do it every week. We laugh at their silliness that we refer to as "spring cleaning".

I don't know which moron designed this faucet, but I'll bet it was someone who never cleans the house -- can I get an Amen?





I will further submit that the yahoo who selected and installed this menace is also guilty of never cleaning a bathroom. So that means that this PAIN-IN-THE-ASS piece of plumbing blew past at least two people who never had the foresight to think about how in the F^$#KING HELL a person is supposed to clean the blasted thing.

Did I mention that between the L.A. and Sacto residences there are FIVE sets of these little bastards?

ON A MORE PLEASANT NOTE:
Jan's Sushi Bar, a pretty purple blog, has been kind enough to include Nanny Goats In Panties on the site's blog roll. I think Jan may very well have the largest selection of Croc's outside of California.

Obama Bo Bama Fo Fama

Today I pulled up behind a big black SUV (in retrospect, probably American made) with 2 bumper stickers. The sticker on the left said "OBAMA". The one on the right said "SUCKS". I was so dumbfounded that someone would stick anything on their nice new looking vehicle - I mean, what are they going to do with it after November? Throw the whole thing away and buy a new pick-em-up truck? I was equally dumbfounded that someone would slap these things on their vehicle and drive around town with them where people these days could just pull up next to the guy and "put a cap in his ass", as it were.

Of course the more I think about it, the more sense it makes. "Obama Sucks" is about the stupidest political statement you could make. It's a fairly unreasoned argument for one thing. Only an idiot would blurt out such a comment without corroborating evidence. So, clearly, the guy is an idiot. Every once in a while, I forget my own wisdom that explains all idiotic behavior: If they could get a clue, they already would have.

Initially, I gave the guy the benefit of the doubt, like the stickers were some inside joke I wasn't aware of, because it was so over-the-top. I thought he had to be kidding, right? I came home and Googled "Obama Sucks Bumper Sticker". Well, that was a mistake. It just exposed me to many many other idiots that I'd just as soon not know exist: and not just the racists, but the dummies with keyboards sans 3rd grade English. I get all worked up when I see such ignorant vitriol and I want to go out and shoot every one of them. I can't seem to get past the seething hatred I have for such people, I can't dig down deep and conjure up any sympathy for these bastards. They are the reason for everything that is wrong in this world. And they must die.

If I were king, I would paint everyone purple, enforce a dress code of Spandex burlap (that's breathable, of course, for those really sweltering summer days), and divert all space exploration funds into inventing a lie-proof lie detector so we would never need juries, or Death Rows, or anything else that just wastes everyone's time and money because of people's lies. God I hate politics!

Oops! Gotta go. O'Reilly's on.

Wild Space Hogs

So I'm in the grocery store parking lot the other day, trolling for a spot. It's raining. The parking lot is packed. And I see this:

Now I ask you.....why does this fricktard think it's OK to be a pig?





POLL REPORT:
"Other responses"
1. maybe someone ELSE was parked all wonky, which forced him to park the way he did

2. I had to look very hard to even SEE that it was two spaces.