Gabs Blabs

Writing Code vs. Writer's Block

I have writer's block. Those to blame are:

- Microsoft – for developing the PITA (Pain in the Ass) software called FrontPage.

- WordPress – for having the PITA blog site, where support is just a concept, but not in existence.

- Western Digital – for designing a PITA hard drive that can't outlive my cat.

- Panasonic – for designing a telephone that rings every time someone calls me. So annoying.
- Start Logic – for having a staff that takes a lunch (OK, they can take a lunch. But, they should answer when I call for help. Maybe they need Panasonic phones.)

Needless to say, last week was a PITA. I spent it writing code trying to get my Website and family friendly blog up and running. I finally did it, (WOO HOO! www.GabrielleBirchak.com) but, now I have writer's block. To get my brain gears turning, I have conducted the following:

1. Cleaned my desk (about six times now)
2. Gave myself a pedicure
3. Made a habitrail for the chipmunks in my backyard.
4. Bathed the dogs
5. Re-designed my kitchen, to equip it with a wide-screen Panasonic HD TV, which rings every time someone calls me.


6. Washed the Mercedes. (OK, it was my neighbor's Mercedes. After much begging, he FINALLY let me do it.)
7. Finally decided that Pepsi is better than Coke. Especially with two shots of Jack Daniels in it. Er, wait, was that decision made before or after the first or second taste test? Why can't I remember this? All I know was that Darma and Greg was A LOT funnier after the taste test.
8. I have taste tested Flax Seed Tortilla Chips against Veggie Chips. Not good, unless conducted with task number seven.
9.Memorized the first three Monty Python's episodes. Did you know that Richard Nixon had a hedgehog named Frank?

Dave Barry has a method to keep from getting writer's block. His is the two-dog system. Two dogs follow him to his office and lie at his feet. One even emits odors. Luckily, I don't need a dog for this. I have my husband.

Unfortunately, I work alone during the day. OK, now that I think about it, I AM fortunate for this.

Finally, after much ado about my Website (WOO HOO! www.GabrielleBirchak.com) and my need to exploit myself, I decided to pull out the big guns. OK, I don't really have any big guns. So, in my need to get some, I went to the Five and Under store. HALLELUJAH, and Sweet Mother of Perpetual Motion, I found what I needed!

I am now cured of writer's block, thanks to the Five and Under store.

Hillary Clinton Pimps her MySpace Account

FYI

http://www.thespoof.com/news/spoof.cfm?headline=s2i16534

Cold Steak

My father has always worked hard, very hard. He was of the blue-collar age, where hard work in the factory garners a move up on the pecking order. He was hoping, one day, to be a head pecker. I'm so glad he never got to be one.

Anyhow, back to the idea of hard work. I remember how, on Saturdays, he would rise early, probably around 5:30 or 6:00 a.m., and go straight to work in the garage. He would clean out something, saw something, hammer something, crawl under a broken something or haul something off to the dump. He would work hard. I knew this because as I sat in my sandbox, I would hear grunts and then "move you son-of-a-****." This was hard work. My friends and I would eventually hang around long enough to learn a new cuss word or two and then head off to the kitchen to experiment with cooking explosives and garlic powder.

Usually around 11:30 a.m., my dad would walk in the back door and head down stairs to get a beer at the bar that he made with his own hands. It was a gorgeous bar. A sign hung above it that read "John Birchak's Pistol Two Saloon – Bar closes at 1:00, Saloon closes at 2:00, So let's all drink 'til one and Pistol Two." It had a tap, just like the kind you see in your local drinking pub. The keg attached to it was always, always full.

After standing at the bar, enjoying the fruits of his labors and the hops of his beer, he'd wander upstairs with another full beer in hand in dig through the refrigerator. "Whatcha makin' Gabby?" he'd ask. My friends and I would exchange glances and say, "Lunch." He'd keep digging in the fridge. Often I'd see him pull out an old leftover steak from a few days ago. He'd open the foil like it was a Christmas gift. The only difference is that Dad never drooled over his Christmas gifts. He'd pull out a piece of steak, lean over the sink and rip on that meat like an old Coon Hound ripping the meat off of a dog bone. The only difference is that the dogs didn't have a beer chaser.

My friends would often look at him with a look of disgust at this mid-morning snack. I, however, found intrigue in this Saturday morning ritual. It wasn't until just recently that I realized that the Birchak apple truly does not fall from the Birchak tree. Just last Saturday, after a good two hours of punching my computer monitor and yelling "go, you stupid son-of-a-****," I wandered up to my kitchen where my kids were coloring.

"What are you coloring?" I ask them.

"I'm drawing a superhero that flies everytime he farts. He has four arms, one eye, six legs and I call him Fart Man," giggles my four-year-old.

"I'm drawing a superhero that eats underwear," laughs the three-year-old.

As I'm listening to this, I'm pulling an old, cold steak out of the refrigerator. It is wrapped in foil, and bagged in a freezer bag to keep it fresh. My husband, Joe, walks in to the room. "Wanna bite?" I ask.

"Yuck, no." He makes a face. "You're gonna eat that cold?"

"Sure," I reply, "But I have to do it leaning over the sink."

He makes a face as though the act of my eating a cold steak over the kitchen sink is an aromatic offense. The kids just look at me, analyzing the situation. I know that one day they will pass this on to their own children. So I stand there, looking out into the backyard, ripping on my steak and drinking my O'Douls (I don't drink alcohol before noon - after that all bets are off). I am proud, because I know that I am setting the Birchak example for generations to come.

Getting Rich Off Insurance Claims

I’m moving to the U.K. In Norwich, several insurance claims have made news by declaring that numerous people are at the mercy of the animal kingdom: deer smashing kitchen windows, horses chewing cars, etc. My favorite is the woman who filed an insurance claim because her beloved hamster became so fraught with the idea of visiting the vet that he chewed through her handbag. It goes to show you that just like dogs know the word “walk,” hamsters clearly understand the word “vet” and will take any means necessary to circumvent the pending horror. The part that gets me is that the woman put the hamster in her handbag. That is as practical as putting your parakeet in a golf bag and covering it with plastic wrap. (By the way, this might work as an insurance claim. If you try it, let me know.)

I could use a few bucks (pun intended), being a semi-penniless writer. Insurance claims based on animal negligence seem to be my ticket out of poor writerdom. Just thinking about all the opportunities gets me excited. Let’s start with my basement carpeting. Every day, when I walk in the front door, an odorous smell of dog pee wafts up the stairwell, welcoming me daily while my dog rests contentedly in MY bed, waiting for me to come greet her. I want to get rid of the carpeting, because, well, I’m just not attached to the aroma of canine urine. How can I go about paying for this? I know! I will file a homeowner’s insurance claim. First, I will blame my dog for peeing on the carpet. Second, I will blame the carpet company for not inventing an odor guard. Third, I will blame the makers of the flimsy baby gate because my dog can knock it down with a simple swipe of the paw. Finally, I will blame the makers of my sliding glass door for not creating an invisible doggy door that blends in with the Feng Shui of my living room.

My next insurance claim will be for damages made to my warm, comfy, fluffy down filled comforter. I could probably get an easy $100 for this one. See, Einstein, my cat, is old and has digestive issues. Every night, I am woken by the deep cries of my feline gurgling, moaning, hacking and heaving as his dinner makes its way to my comforter. My true desire to get up and move the cat to a non-carpeted floor is won out by my veritable need to keep my eyes closed and pretend that I can’t hear the gagging, hoping that my husband will jump to the comforter’s rescue. Alas, I nod off to sleep, dreaming that the maid is cleaning it up (in my dreams I have a maid), only to wake the next morning to find a now-solid form of feline projectile encrusted to my comforter. After years of this, my comforter now has permanent yellow markings proudly left by Einstein the Cat. Thus, I will first file a claim blaming the makers of my comforter. They should have considered a resilient scotch guard that could literally repel cat vomit. Second, I will file an insurance claim blaming my husband’s company for overworking him to the point that he can’t exuberantly jump out of bed to willingly clean up feline puke.

My final homeowner’s insurance claim will be for the damages made to my once-beautiful wooden back patio by my candy-ass dog, Bella. Bella earnestly believes that ten more steps out to the back yard equates to a temperature drop of at least 15 degrees. Thus, on those cold Virginia winter nights when Mother Nature calls, Bella takes five steps out on to my patio and relieves herself. It’s just gross. My husband just looks at it and says, “Hey, it’s a Poop Deck!” I ask, is it so hard to step out there and clean it? Therefore, I will be filing another claim. First I will blame the wood company for not making self-cleaning wood. Second, I will blame my husband’s company for making him too lethargic to lift a shovel. Three, I will blame the makers of my shoes because my feet stick every time I remotely consider the idea of exerting myself to “untaint” my patio.

This is a completely new opportunity for me! The idea of absolving myself from responsibility and making money in the process could change my life. I could put my kids in private school, buy that villa in Italy and live off the fat of my insurance claims for the rest of my life. Of course, I can only accomplish this freewheeling, freeloading life by incessantly blaming the rest of the world for all the wrong done to me by my chowderhead pets. Yes, the UK is the place for me!

Here is the article: http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=35468&in_page_id=34

Bald Britney

In case you have been in a remote cave picking at a pimple on your butt for the last four days, then you missed out on the most important media alert since Al Franken announced his senatorial run: Britney Spears is bald (oh and tattooed)! It’s the end of the pop princess, as we know her. All I can say is good for her. I wish I had the cojones to shave my head.

C’mon ladies, admit it, there are days when you want to shave it all off. Of course, it’s usually on those days when you are running late for work. You’ve blow dried your bangs a million times, but you’ve got that one piece that still flips straight out, insisting that you look like a creature from Narnia. You know it’s really bad when you hear “check out the avenging unicorn in collections” whispered around the water cooler. You hear the snickers and the chuckles, so you sulk behind your desk muttering, “I’m going to shave it off.”

But, you don’t.

Then you have those times when your hair gets to “that length” and it’s the primary obsession of your boyfriend. You are trying to have a nice romantic evening watching American Idol (it doesn’t get any more romantic than Larry, Curly and Mr. Cranky) and all your significant other can say is, “I love your hair. You should dye it blonde.” Then he runs his strong fingers through your hair. Yeah, it feels good. Until he hits a knot and yanks out a chunk of hair. Of course, that doesn’t stop him. He tries it again. There goes another chunk of hair. You tell him to forget it. While Ryan Seacrest and Simon Cowell are busy making googly eyes at each other, you wander off to comb out the tangles. After you’ve filled your trashcan with enough hair to make a small dog, you realize you missed AI’s denigration for the week. You think to yourself, “I’m going to shave it off.”

But, you don’t.

My favorite bad hair days are those days when it's so windy that I can see the neighbor’s dog hovering above the six-foot-high backyard fence. On these days, you actually have time to fix your hair. You have finished your make-up and it’s perfect! You are a pop princess; sans the attitude, (no attitude because no one ever got more than a merit raise impressing the boss while dancing around and singing, “Oops I did it again”– unless you’re a Mark Foley intern.) Yes, pop princess, sans the attitude, you go! You step out of your car, and BLAM, you have hair all over your face. You brush it away, while it glides across the perfect lipstick job, smearing red lipstick all over your cheeks. Of course, you don’t notice it until AFTER a conference meeting, when your secretary asks, “Are you bleeding?” You rush to a mirror, and you are shocked at the image before you. Instead of looking like the go-getting professional that you are, you look like a back-up singer for KISS. You think to yourself, “I’m going to shave it off.”

But, you don’t.

Yes, hair can suck, on so many different levels. The long locks dictate that we are beautiful. The magazines and advertisements say so, so it must be true. If it’s not long, then, well, it’s just frumpy. This is what many men say, so that must be true as well. Oh, let us not forget, it must be blonde, because, well, blondes have more fun. Marilyn Monroe sang it, so it must be true. 

So, if we conform to the long, blonde or highlighted locks, does that make us sane and strong? Likewise, if we shave our heads, does that make us weak and insane? I say no. On the contrary, conformity is an indication of weakness, and divergence from the social norms of conformity, well, that is strength. Maybe some young tress-obsessed tween out there is paying attention to Miss Spears and realizing that, well, we are not our hair and that there are more important things in the world to tend to than the fur on our head.

It's the End of the World ... as we know it

Grab your coat and check your hat, leave your worries on the doorstep. The missiles are coming! I love this site: http://www.endofworld.net/

Warning, not suitable for little ears. So, if your ears are big, that's OK.

Laughing Baby

This one is sure to make you smile.