This has got to stop

Chain letters. I know I know, I shouldn't even be reading them, let alone opening them. None of them ever come true when you send them to the desired number of people it says on the list. Strangely enough, if you really read them over carefully, you'd see where many of these chain letters are rife with bad information to begin with. Take the chain letter I received from Evelyn of all people, someone I thought wouldn't pass along this sort of sappy crud.

Hi All, Okay, I picked seven people who I thought would DO this. I hope I chose
the right seven. Please send this back to me.

In case anyone is interested, Saint Theresa is known as the Saint of the
Little Ways. She believed in doing the little things in life well and with great
love. She is also the patron Saint of flower growers and florists. She is
represented by roses. May everyone be blessed who receives this message.
Theresa's Prayer cannot be deleted. REMEMBER to make a wish before you read the poem. That's all you have to do. There is nothing attached. This is a powerful
novena. Just send this to seven people and let me know what happens on the
fourth day. Do not break this, please. Prayer is one of the best free gifts we
receive. There is no cost but a lot of reward.

Suggestion: copy and paste rather than forward to protect e-mail
addresses and access to e-virus.

(Did you make a wish?)

If you don't make a wish, it won't come true. Last chance to make a wish!

St. Theresa's Prayer: May today there be peace within.May you trust your
highest power that you are exactly where you are meant to be. May you not forget
the infinite possibilities that are born of faith. May you use those gifts that
you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you.... May you
be content knowing you are a child of God.... Let this presence settle into our
bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love. It is
there for each and every one of you.

Now, send this to 7 people within the next 5 minutes and your wish will come
true. And remember to send this back...You'll see why

Lets dissect it completely and together, shall we? Lets start with the prerequisite seven unlucky suckers who now have to devote some 3.5 minutes of their life online reading this sap. The number seven in the northern hemisphere and for much of the European countries view seven as a lucky number. As luck would have it, (no pun intended) most people have at the bare minimum 6-8 people in their email list. See a pattern?

Strangely enough the number seven isn't lucky in American culture, it has been mired in superstition and counter culture. The citizens of Rome believed that life renewed itself every seven years and believed that could be transferred to the mirror, since a person's image was seen in it. Simplistic thinking says since the mirror held the person's image then it was the person's reflected image captured inside a mirror. This was felt to symbolize that the last person who looked into it when it became broken was in ill-health. So, the person was broken, and the omen by the mirror breaking was that he or she would not get well for seven years, as part of a modified reincarnation fear. Why the connection to Rome and Americas? Who we're the nomadic people who migrated to the new world centuries ago?

Interesting, huh?

The Japanese culture believe in seven luck gods called the Shichifukujin, seven gods who control different aspects of happiness through luck, but I digress...

The letter goes on to say St. Theresa is The Saint of the Little Ways. This is partial truth. St. Theresa was called The Saint of the Little ways, but she was actually the patron saint of florists and flowers, so that part of the chain letter is true.

Her real name is THERESE of Lisieux, and she is the patron saint for: African missions; AIDS sufferers; air crews; aircraft pilots; Australia; aviators; Belgian air crews; black missions; bodily ills; diocese of Cheyenne, Wyoming; diocese of Fairbanks, Alaska; diocese of Fresno, California; diocese of Juneau, Alaska; diocese of Pueblo, Colorado; florists; flower growers; foreign missions; France; illness; loss of parents; missionaries; parish missions; restoration of religious freedom in Russia; Russia; sick people; sickness; Spanish air crews; tuberculosis.

Now as far as her prayer, that one isn't any of the prayers to her. Nothing remotely close to any of them. There are six prayers for her (seen here, here, here, here, here and here) and each are prayers to specifically call on her.

It's a nice message sent, but it needed to have been researched slightly more. A deeper understanding of who the saint is they are trying to convey would have helped and a slightly better explanation of who she was would have been better. Complete superstition. Nothing bad will happen in your day by not passing it, or any religious chain letter around cyberspace... Besides, what if one of the people you were sending it to were Jewish?

Mother Nature was drunk last night

The El Paso, Las Cruces areas of Texas and New Mexico were threatened by a record three tornado warnings issued in the span of 5 hours yesterday afternoon and late evening. There was one confirmed tornado touchdown outside of a small New Mexico town north of Chaparral.



Lightning strikes were common last night, as were flooding on the west side of El Paso. I was on the phone with Evelyn and Yolie during the lightning storm, and was told by Yolie that she could hear the thunder claps thru the phone.

All is good now, the rain is gone, the roads are somewhat dry and the weather for today calls for weather similar to yesterday's downpour. The rain that fell on the east side of town was much less and much calmer than what fell on the west, and northeast sides of town, so lets see what happens today.

This should be interesting, voyeurs...

Something I have noticed lately

I update my blog pretty frequently. Friends of mine who also update on a frequent basis might start noticing what I am about to say, too. I started to notice a drastic decrease in the amount of emails I receive from friends. It's odd to say, but blogging keeps people in touch with me more than an email every few days. My blog is updated so frequently, I have this feeling people are logging on to my site and checking up with me.

It doesn't help that I have something like eight or nine (yes, 8 or 9) email addresses, so keeping tabs of them is kinda difficult. People often ask why I have so many, and the answer is simple. Several are emails for spam, several for people I don't want going to my regular email account, and the others are there for the sake of signing up to websites...

When did I have to start explaining things to you people?

Getting ready to reveal something beautiful

Just as a hint as to what I am about ready to unfold for everyone, here's a picture to go on...


Teddy & Yolie Parra

A little late...

You know, after all the loading and reloading of my home computer's operating system, you would have figured I would have wanted to quickly get all my photos back into their respective folders and such, but that's not the case with me. I had been sitting on a lot of photos from my past vacation destinations that I promised I would post, but never did. Shame on me.

Something not too many people remember from last year, I met several actors from the TV/movie series Star Trek. I have photographic proof of this located here. I was going thru my pictures on CD's last night and found them attatched to the trip to Corpus Christi back in November of 2003.

I still need to post most of those pictures and pictures from Yolie's wedding, so all those should be coming soon. The problem with the ones from Yolie's wedding is I need to resize and touch some of them up to fit the website. All in due time. Enjoy these for now. They will also be added to my sidebar for future reference.

Sunday Bloody Sunday

So here it is, another typical sunday. Im sitting here in my plush leather chair, mercilesly biting the heads off of gummi bears. The mall was pretty decent to walk thru this afternoon, albeit hard to find parking. The weather has been nice the past few days and that has been such a great change. Its been raining off and on all night and most of the day and the sun hasn't dared poke its head out for anything. The next few days will be nice.

Yeah, this is typical

Yep. Me, here in the talkset of the radio station doing an update. The laptop isn't working right again today, so I have it taken apart and in pieces on my desk. I really need to get a new one.

IM starting to realize that things aren't going to go as planned for the next few months, or at least the way I'd like them to go. I opened up a savings account a few weeks ago at one of the Wells Fargo branches in town and right now I am just letting some money sit in the bank so I don't feel the urge to spend it. It's all a nice fine little thought to have, but realizing that my license plates are due on the Mustang isn't helping me go on vacation to Corpus Christi any time soon.

Lately also, I have been getting a bad case of I want... So my mind is torn what to get. I know better, though. I opened the second account so I could afford crap for the car in case I didn't have enough on any paycheck.

Damnit, I just realized I have to do laundry today and I wanna nap. Yes, I also want my beakie and a bottle...

What not to do

I learned today not to try and bathe a large, frightened beagle alone. She took the fight out of me this afternoon.

Work aggrivates me

I know, big whoop. Its the small things that really seem to piss me off. It seems that the more its brought to light, less is done about it. Im probably preaching to the choir, but the ammount of paper in the building's 4 restrooms is an issue. Toilet tissue that tears off 4 sheets at a time, no hand tissues after you wash your hand, overflowed toilets... You'd swear we were in a high school!

On a darker side of 'what the fuck', I almost beaned a blind co-worker with a toy basketball. Long story, and before Im judged, we were laughing.

Something new to offer

I'd like to see how this one comes across. It's in my sidebar for future reference.

STRANGE FINDINGS FROM THE INTERNET XLIX
-back with a vengeance!

It's no secret I try to travel to places in the United States where I know people so I can stay with them. You know, to cut down on costs. If you don't have a wealth of friends, try this great site for some hotel & campground ideas around the spots you wanna go.

Got a pension for anything Godfather-related? Bet you don't have this! Uh, honey, you don't know where Khartoum is, do you? He wasn't in his stable this evening...

Ideas for personal air transportation is as old as Michelangelo when he dreamt up plans for some of the modern days more commonplace transports like helicopters and fixed wing aircraft. Movies were created out of novels detailing the ideas of rocket-backpacks and such, but this nit-wit-rocketeer is probably gonna make a crater that only NASA would be proud of...

Sick and tired of reading the same ole' books? Well, we got a little of everything for everyone in this thread. Wanna read some steamy books with men... well endowed? How about taking a walk on the darker side of lesbian? Not into either? Read some woman with a burr in her britches pu-pu on other people's writing. I think I'll stick with audio books.

Damnit, someone out bid me on this... Imagine what that would look like resting in the back seat of the Mustang with the top down? Cut me off, would ya...

Finally today, with people still interested in my cuisine I thought this new recipe would go over great with everyone. Where's my glass of milk and antacid tablets?

I can't believe I am out of findings

It's true. I have tapped all my sources of Strange Findings and haven't found one interesting link worthy of the title Strange Finding. It looks like it wants to rain. I promise to look harder tomorrow for a better update.

I am considering placing some sidebar items up for good recipies...

Im surprised

The number of people asking for the recipe for the chicken from the other day is amazing. People as far away as South Africa are asking for this delectible dish. I hope I didnt dissapoint people.

Lets all move on.

Im bored. Dont wanna do laundry. I also didnt pay bills, which means I am gonna pay for that tomorrow. I know this will be disgusting, but you should realize this by now that I am an odd person... I have a pimple right next to my piercing... ITS ANNOYING. Wheres my tweezers...

Because you asked for it...
Chicken Parmisana, Mike Calderon style:
serves 3-4

Ingredients needed:
3-4 frozen (thawed) chicken breast (large)
2 cups egg noodles
3 table spoons olive oil (extra virgin)
3 table spoons fresh ground pepper
1 1/2 tea spoons kosher salt
3 table spoons garlic powder (half or whole garlic can be used)
1 stick butter
1 large jar Ragu (or similar style) spaghetti sauce
1 large frying pan (with lid)
1 large pot (filled halfway with already hot water)
=======================================================

In the large pot, set water to boil on high heat, pouring in one table spoon of olive oil*. Once water is at a boil, season the water with any aromatic herbs as desired. Place in boiling water 2 cups egg noodles (in the United States, called 'No Yolks') and place lid on to continue boil.

Place 2 table spoons olive oil in a frying pan on medium high heat. Place in thawed chicken breasts and liberally season with salt, pepper and garlic powder. Place pan on medium low heat when both sides of chicken have seared slightly, pour full jar of spaghetti sauce onto the chicken breasts and surrounding pan. DO NOT STIR SAUCE AND CHICKEN. Use fresh grated, or already shredded mozzarella and Parmesan cheese to top the chicken breasts and almost all surface areas of the sauce (use as much cheese as desired), the more, the tastier. When bubbles come thru the sauce, turn stovetop off.

Remove noodles from their boil into a sieve or colander, return pot to an unlit burner for final noodle preperation. Place in one stick butter (cut into quarters to help melt) and replace the still steaming noodles to pan. Stir noodles and butter together, seasoning with fresh thyme, basil and crushed garlic cloves (garlic powder an acceptable substitution). Replace lid.

Set side dishes to your liking. Suggested sides:
Sweet baby carrots
Baked Potato
Spinach
Dinner Rolls

Enjoy, voyeurs!

*Olive oil set in water naturally floats to the top. Olive oil in the water doesn't season the water, but it prevents foam-overs from happening when cooking pasta and prevents pasta from sticking to colander.

Maybe IM Amazed

Dinner last night was absolutely amazing. It was far beyond anything I could have even dreamed it would be. Usually, I hate thinking about cooking dinner, especially with the food still frozen by 3:30pm. I started contemplating spaghetti, but decided not to when I found old, stale and brittle pasta in the cupboards. Cooking blind and realizing I didn't have the ingredients for my favorite BBQ chicken, I searched and searched but only found Ragu...

With a new found sense of inspiration, I poured the sauce onto the chicken and let it simmer for a while, spreading TONS or cheese on top of the chicken and pasta sauce, making chicken primavera. Some egg noodles and spinach completed the meal and was completely overwhelmed how good dinner came out. Plates were licked clean and the leftovers were made into lunches for today.

I remember the recipe for next time. There will be a next time.

Taco Bell and a run for the wallet

Taco Bell introduced their new value menu with larger sized items. "Packed with meat" is said on one of their commercials, describing the new larger items. Larger my ass, LITTERALLY. Their larger items arent large at all. The only large thing about them is they are more expensive than normal items. Don't buy them.

STRANGE FINDINGS FROM THE INTERNET XXXXVIII
-I need to change this numbering structure...

Its Friday!!! Strike up the band, wake the dog and shoot the lights out- wait... Do I even have anything to do? No, I don't. Sad, I know. On to the findings!

I know from first hand that computer software piracy affects a lot of people. As a former pirate of software (HA!) I know how easy it is to bootleg and attain codes to run software, I've done it. New developments are going to stop that from happening. I like this idea...

I wonder if you guys remember those pictures from the early to mid 90's that you had to stare at what looked like military fatigue camouflage and cross your eyes to see an image? Those stupid eye pictures are probably why I have fucked up stigmatism. Stereoscopy is similar, but in the Victorian era, it was one of the novelties of the age. New interest has sparked someone to post some new ones online, and for the life of me I cant get my eyes to focus on it to work...

I remember when I bought the Playstation, I bought it for Tomb Raider and Lara Croft, one of the videogames strongest female lead character in a title action game. There had been rumor and speculation floating around the internet about secret codes for Tomb Raider 2, and SINCE Tomb Raider 2 for a cheat code to remove Laras clothes. There aren't any codes out there, if there were, millions of Tomb Raider games would have been recalled. Anyways. Playboy magazine has caught on to the videogame vixen craze and are going to publish nude pics of many of the videogame industries most... Masturbation-fantasized women. Playboy will increase their revenue by 1,000% if the target guys mom's don't confiscate them...

I cant believe this. There is a market for it, and the worst part is, rap artists are using them. Its genius in its simplicity, hilarious in its concept, but tacky as all get out.

Finally, its time to gauge your mortality.

What? What did I do? YOU clicked that last link...

Its another day in paradise, or is it paradise lost?

Picked up my moms car from the shop yesterday, won't say whats wrong with it. It will be fixed. Watching a police pursuit on KTLA, so thats entertaining me. An intern for the AC station brought in some Krispy Kremes and passed them out to most of us poor schmucks working at 5am. So that, along with my cup of hot tea is keeping me cozy and preventing me from complaining.

Was doing some searches the other day for some Japanese chopsticks. Found some nice websites that sell some nice stuff. I didnt supply the links here cause I bookmarked them on my home computer, not the laptop. If I find something new (as I always do) I will share, dont worry about that.

Maybe its not me...

Lately, I hadn't been feeling well. I had openly complained about the numerous mosquito bites the past few weeks and now I have this strange illness where my throat is sore and I am weak and tired. I was attributing it to my blood pressure medication, but I had been taking it for some time now, and this is the first time its been really affecting me. Apparently others have been complaining about it too.

On a positive note, it seems Corpus Christi outranks El Paso with traffic snarls. The report was released yesterday (WARNING - PDF format) and it lists the worst cities in the country, and here in Texas, El Paso has traffic woes worse than Corpus Christi. Mind you, half of the freeway infrastructure in Corpus is under construction and at times of bad weather, under water...

So thats where we stand, or sit in our cars depending on how we see it. Oh, before I sign off, I want to wish David a happy birthday. 500 years old and STILL in his birthday suit. If only we could all look that good at that age...

Getting sick

Tis the season. Sore throats, achy limbs, headaches. I hate this time of the year. The weather is all screwed up for one, so hot days and cold nights are causing my sore throat. My medication for my bloodpressure is making me sleepy, but thats a side effect. It was one of the reasons I didn't update yesterday. Other reasons were the computer. I wont get into that.

Im back.

Watching Frances

Hurricane Frances is about to bear down on Florida. Last report today was it [Frances] is the size of Texas. I just hope my friends down in Florida are prepared and/or evacuated and safe.

UPDATING

Right now I am using the newsroom computer to write this update, I find myself 1 hour into updating my computer. Already installed are Mozilla and the helper applications it needs to properly view the internet. Also laoded are Adobe & Quicktime, so Im scratching more items off the list. Right now I have it updating with the Microsoft website, so all the critical crap is loaded. I nearly gave myself a hernia trying to carry the stupid thing in the building. It must weigh something close to 50 lbs.

Back to the grind.

Upgrade

I upgraded the home computer from a dual boot ME/2000 to Windows XP Professional. The down side is I don't have any programs loaded. On slate for tomorrow:

1. Mozilla
2. Ad-Aware
3. AVG Antivirus
4. Norton Utilities
5. Windows Media Player
6. Quicktime
7. Adobe Reader
8. Logitech Camera
9. Kodak Camera
10. flatbed scanner
11. Musicmatch Jukebox
12. XP updates and service packs

Ive got a long day of updates ahead of me tomorrow