Tonight, moments after I had locked up for the night,  a young man knocked on the door.  It was 9:05 and everything was locked up, money in the safe, ready to go home after a long day.  “I was wondering if I could get a pack of cigarettes.”  Either the person had a very babyish face or he was trying to pull a fast one.  In the first place, we were closed and someone asking for cigarettes is the LAST thing I would EVER let anyone talk me into selling them 5 minutes after the store was closed..  We are a dry store… no alcohol, or that would also be nixed.  After I politely told the rather young looking gentleman that I could not help him, the manager told me that she had waited on him before.  She refused the sale just as I would have.  In order to prove his age he asked if a birth certificate would be acceptable.  Who is this guy trying to kid?

This reminds me of a tale I have heard related about cast members from a production of Scapin (the best show no one saw… myself included as I had yet to become involved in the community theatre as heavily as I am now) going to a convenience store trying to buy some alcohol.  My 21 year-old + friend was still in heavy costume makeup giving him the appearance of an extremely old man..  If memory serves, the clerk was not going to allow the sale until identification was given.  I do not believe he had his license with him at the time.  Hilarious. [poll id=”8″]

Recently I’ve been trying to respond to one person’s blog, and I’ve gotten errors.  Then I try on another browser and can make 1 reply.  Then on to a third to make another reply.  Then I have to log completely off my computer to make another reply.  Just weird.  Of course while testing all this out it looks like I’m making very weird comments.   Of course, sometimes I do make weird comments, so nobody really notices the difference. 😉

But, I wonder is anyone having trouble commenting on my blog.  Am I loosing the opinions, views, and comments of others?  I can’t be sure, unless they contact me in some other manner.  

The other thing I notice this past week, I’m getting more spam type replies.  Since I do some moderation  of all the replies, most don’t get through, but I see them.   I don’t like them, they add no value to my blog.  That is important to me.   I would like this blog to be a place for me to share, inform, rant and maybe entertain.  Both my initial post and the responses to them help with this.  Spam replies do none of this.

Then I noticed that some blog themes like certain browsers better than others.  This is to be expected, since some browsers handle the coding differently.   It is my hope that my current blog works well with all browsers.  It certainly works with the ones I use, on the screen setting I use.  Input on what you see would help out.

Finally I started using a few polls.  There is one poll on this site that I’m guessing our wonderful Admin put on when he was testing the poll plugin install.  Here it is for your pleasure, and my education.

[poll id = 1]

In my previous post I was looking for the title of a song and the artist who sings it, and I promised a prize to anyone who could provide me with the info.  Two readers and fellow bloggers, justj and derek, successfully completed the challenge.  So what’s their prize?  A blog post of recognition, of course!

Alright, that’s dumb.  It’s going to make sure that people never take any challenges I offer again.  Isn’t just knowing that you helped a friend enough?  Of course it is, but you were promised a prize.  Maybe I can treat your ears to a round of Senorita Mas Fina (that’s the name of the song I was looking for in case you’re wondering, and it’s sung by Kevin Fowler).

Just kidding!  I won’t make you listen to the song.  It really seems like something only a country music lover would like – cheesy lyrics, hokey theme, obscene amount of twang – the kind of song I can really use to tease my friends who hate country music!

Well, thanks again derek and justj for playing and for coming up with the info I was looking for.  And it’s ironic, I did do searches myself, and I did come up with the name Kevin Fowler, but before I was able to listen to the song, I had to do something else (the baby has been crying for 3 days straight – teething), and I guess I forgot I was close to a result when my computer crashed.  So thanks for helping me, and you will get more than the blog post recognition I had planned – I will have a real prize the next time I see each of you – something small, but maybe a little better than blog recognition and being made to listen to an extreme lesson in the country music technique of twang.  Thanks for playing!

But a prince ain’t bad either.  First rehearsal after the read through.  It is interesesting how everyone is getting into their characters.  We have a good cast, and we already developing some very intresting personallities.  Should be a lot of fun.   

I have some verly good lines and good interaction with the other actors.  As with all my acting experiences, I hope to learn something in this stage experience.  With the actors on stage and the directors out in front, I’m sure it will happen again.

Now just a bit of trivia, while the line “It’s good to be the king” is not said exactly in this play, the sentiment is there.  This line was said often in a couple of Mel Brooks’ movies and one of his stage plays.  Extra point for any who can name all three and another movie that used the line.

From dictionary.com:

gringo [gring-goh] –noun, plural -gos. Usually Disparaging.
(in Latin America or Spain) a foreigner, esp. one of U.S. or British descent.

Sorry – didn’t mean to be disparaging, but I am of U.S. descent and I need help.

This post is an appeal to country music fans to please help me figure out the details of a country song I want.  I don’t know the name of it or who sings it.  It’s an older song – maybe from the 1980’s or ’90’s…  I wouldn’t even rule out the ’70’s.  Just about the only lyrics I can remember are “…be your little gringo…”  or something like that.  The song is uptempo and sung by a male.  If you can get me the name and artist of the song I’m looking for, you’ll win a prize.  Something tells me Carol might know this…  or my dad…  WHAT IS THIS SONG?

As I was making lunch today, I heard the following fascinating story on the radio, so I had to look it up and read it for myself:

The following article is from baltimoresun.com:
DANBURY, Conn. (AP) — On the day that Donald Peters died, he unknowingly provided financial security for his wife of 59 years and their family.

Peters bought two Connecticut Lottery tickets at a local 7-Eleven store on Nov. 1 as part of a 20-year tradition he shared with his wife Charlotte. Later that day, the 79-year-old retired hat factory worker suffered a fatal heart attack while working in his yard in Danbury.

On Friday, his widow cashed in one of the tickets: a $10 million winner which, in her grief over her husband’s death, she had put aside and almost discarded before recently checking the numbers.

“I’m numb,” Charlotte Peters, 78, said at Connecticut Lottery headquarters in Rocky Hill.

Donald Peters usually bought the tickets for 10 weeks at a stretch, so the winning ticket he bought Nov. 1 for the Dec. 2 drawing was among several that Charlotte Peters put aside as she, their three children and two grandchildren coped with his sudden death.

“I was in the grocery store and I had it checked and they told me I was a winner,” she said. “I had no idea how much it was.”

She said she thought she had won $6 million but was surprised to learn from lottery officials she’d won $10 million.

Charlotte Peters has 60 days to decide whether to take a $6 million pre-tax lump sum payment or stretch the winnings into 21 yearly payments of almost $477,300 each.

She does not yet know what she will do with the money.

“I’ve always wanted a Corvette, but I don’t think I’ll buy one. I’ll stick to a small car. I might go to Mohegan Sun,” she said, referring to the casino in Connecticut. “I’m going to go home and sit and think.”

The Peters children think their father would have appreciated the irony.

“He’d be very mad, he just passed away and she won a lot of money,” said Brian Peters, one of the couple’s three children. “He’d say, ‘Figures!'”

Even though Mr. Peters was not aware of his “luck”, in effect he paid the ultimate price to win the lottery.  Was it worth it?  Probably not.  Any sane person would rather have his life, health, and loved ones rather than an extremely large windfall if there was a choice.  Since that’s a poll I’d rather not take, here is one about what you would do if you won a huge amount of money in a lottery.

[poll id=”4″]

I’ve always tried out new (free) browsers as they are released since the inception of a browser as a program.  I remember the first Mosaic browser.  Quite a change from text based newsgroups and bulliten boards.  Text and pictures all at once. 

Currently I’m using Windows XP and have Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome loaded to run.  Most of the time I use Chrome, because it is just a bit faster to load.  Firefox follows closely as to what I use most.  I have Explorer just in case something doesn’t work on the other two browsers.    

So of course this lends itself to another poll….

[poll id=4]

In another sign of the weak economy, I received an email from a dinner theatre in Akron, Ohio which has cancelled its 2009 season, putting 150 people out to work.  I attended a production of West Side Story a few years ago and was once again enchanted by the power of live theatre.  The Carousel began in a converted supermarket in 1973 (what a coinkidink) and moved to its current location in 1988).  The theatre has created a buzz in New York as it has recruited talent from the Big Apple.  Each musical was self-produced using equity performers.  Quite a shame to see artistic venues come crashing down during this economic crisis.  I also hear that New York theatre is not doing well, either.

The Carousel Dinner Theatre, LLC has cancelled its 2009 season and closed its doors effective January 4, 2009.

For the past year, the economy has materially affected the theatre’s attendance and its ability to make cost adjustments to keep pace with the decrease in attendance. The final tipping point became the reversal of certain stakeholders’ written or verbal promises that would have had a major impact on the theatre’s continuance for the 2009 season and beyond.

Mr. Joseph E. Palmer accepts full responsibility for this action and regrets the impact on one hundred fifty employees and their families and all others affected by this closure.

If you have made any advance purchases on your credit cards, you should should immediately contact your credit card company to process a full refund.

I recently sat and watched the movie Wall*E with my young nieces after they begged and pleaded to be able to do so.  They however, watched maybe 5 minutes of the movie and were off to other things.  I thought the movie was cute but far from all the praise it has received… even being mentioned as a contender for best picture of the year.

The Disney/Pixar film has similarities to Short Circuit.  The star of the show bears an uncanny resemblance to Number “Johnny” Five.  Wall*E seems to be one of the last remaining, functional objects left on Earth as the planet has been deemed uninhabitable because of the trash content.  He is left on Earth as a trash collector.  However, everything he finds is not discarded.  The robot collects a treasure trove of trinkets to add to his collection.  A Rubik’s Cube, a fish plaque that sings “Dont Worry, Be Happy,”  The most memorable trinket is a VCR that includes a tape of Hello Dolly and always placed at the scene featuring Michael Crawford as Cornelius singing “It Only Takes a Moment.”  Wall*E’s only companion is a cute(?) unnamed cockroach.

But what became of the humans inhabiting the planet?  A sleek, attractive robot named Eva is sent to Earth in order to find any sign of life.  When Wall-E finds a small plant, Eva’s directive is complete and she blasts off to the large spaceship full of human descendants from 700 years in the past.  The human’s are rather robust, lazy people who have to do nothing as robots have become the ultimate servants. Humans do not even need to walk anywhere.  They are transported by motorized recliners. When Eva returns, the robots on board the ship become jealous and mutiny against the human captain and will not allow the ship to return to Earth.  That’s the plot in a nutshell… enough to make those who have never seen it determine if it is for them.

Pixar’s animation continues to be cutting edge and the movie was cute but I don’t think it deserves all the attention it has garnered.[poll id=”7″]

This is sort of a serious poll for me.  As you know, a while ago I started using pictures/graphics to head up my posts.  After a bit of time, I was told they were causing problems for some so I changed the theme template to solve the problem.  However, this still doesn’t answer a question I was wondering about.  Being on a computer with a desktop resolution of 1920×1200 and using a broadband connection to the internet, I personally have no problems at all with the graphics I use.  However, others may not feel the same as lower desktop resolutions such as 1024×768 are far more common, and not everyone is on broadband yet.  So when I ask this question I guess it can be interpreted in two ways.  First, the physical size of the graphics: I try for a width of 600 and a height usually of 250-350.  Does this take up too much screen real estate?  Second, the file size.  I try to stick with jpegs as it is both a standard and has smaller file sizes than bmp or png.  However, they can still be too large and take a long time to load as a result for those not on broadband.

Due to the nature of this poll, I have refrained from adding a header graphic to this post.  Please answer honestly and give explanations if you wish.  While only one of the options actually asks for an explanation, please feel free to explain any of your votes.  Thanks.

[poll id=”2″]