Kerry Allen

There was a pamphlet enclosed with the electric bill, explaining why rates are so high. They’re actually doing us a huge favor. According to their graph, they’re losing money by giving us a break. Were they not such humanitarians, our bills would be five times what they are now, so we should all be thankful for this latest rate hike.

Burning coal is cheap, but it’s filthy.

Burning natural gas (which they do) is clean, but it’s increasingly expensive.

They’re working to lift the ban on nuclear power plants because that will be cheaper, too. Potentially dangerous on an epic scale, but cheaper.

We live in the Sunshine State. Not one word was mentioned about solar power.

We live in a state with hundreds of miles of coastline, along which there is a perpetual breeze. Not one word was mentioned about windmills.

We live in a state with hundreds of miles of coastline, along which there is a constant movement of water. Not one mention was made of hydroelectric power, or whatever they call it when it’s wave power instead of dammed rivers.

No, we’re just going to keep doing things the way we’ve been doing them for the past 50 years and hope something magically changes. Instead of trying something new, which would be inconvenient, we’re going to wait until the day we completely exhaust all the nonrenewable resources we’ve been relying on and then say, “Oh, shit. Now what? Didn’t those environmental crackpots say something a while back about ‘harnessing the power of the sun’? Stupid hippies. I like the sound of forcing everyone in the world to pay for something that’s free, like those other guys did with bottled water. Let’s sell ‘em sunlight!”

We should have begun implementing alternative power sources 50 years ago. It didn’t have to be 100 percent alternative power overnight. If we’d converted a measly 1 percent a year, we could now be at a point where a significant portion of the energy burden was not dependent on finite resources.

We didn’t start 50 years ago, or 40 or 30 or 20 or 10. It’s not too late, but there’s no indication we’re going to start tomorrow, either. The attitude remains: “*pfft* Tomorrow is somebody else’s problem!”

Kinda makes me want to buy a shack in the boonies, cover the roof with solar panels, erect a wind turbine in the back yard (they run about 40 grand, hence the shack), and go completely off-grid.

Did you know, if you generate more power than you can use yourself, the electric company will buy the surplus from you? So they know it works. They just want somebody else to take responsibility for it.

Angelic Daughter’s school has reached new heights of ridiculousness.

You must understand, I am not being facetious when I call her Angelic Daughter. We might have our little squabbles at home, but since infancy, she has been perfectly behaved whenever she leaves the house. She’s quiet and thoughtful and considerate of others and has never been in trouble a day of her life.

So imagine my surprise when I’m asked to come to the principal’s office on her first day of seventh grade.

Guess why. Go ahead, guess. Be creative. I thought it couldn’t get more outrageous than calling the cops because a student was carrying the highly dangerous controlled substance known on the street as “Tylenol” or a deadly weapon like nail clippers, but I was mistaken.

I had to leave work and go to the school because my child had a rubber band around her wrist.

Often during the day, she will find it desirable to pull her hair back in a ponytail. They’re not allowed to have backpacks or purses, mind you, so there’s nowhere to carry a rubber band other than on her person.

“Did she take it off her wrist and pop somebody with it?”

“No.”

“Okaaaaaay. Then I’m really not seeing the problem.”

“What concerns us is the statement she’s making.”

“That statement being… she might like to keep her hair out of her face? I don’t recall anything in the student code of conduct indicating this was a strictly hair-in-face school.”

It was an hour-long lesson that people cannot hear the stupidity that comes out of their own mouths. I tried mirroring back the stupidity that was said to me, and it sounded just as stupid the second time.

Toward the end, I became somewhat belligerent, since calm, rational dialogue had zero effect. Words to the effect of “How did a fucking idiot like you get a job that doesn’t involve a hair net and a deep fryer?” may have been spoken.

I just might have to find a way to make home schooling work because I am increasingly terrified of subjecting her to so much idiocy 6 hours a day. I’ve tried to teach her to use her brain, but being submerged in anti-intelligence 5 days a week can do a lot of damage.

And I’m still not clear about the “statement.” Was there a Fox News report that wearing a rubber band on one’s wrist is the mark of the Taliban or something?

Saturday was Terrible Action Movie Saturday on TNT, and I left it playing all friggin’ day. Here is why.

(Many pictures and a short video below the fold.)

See the rest of “Terrible Action Movie Saturday on TNT!”

IWS: Brought the werewolf section up to the same level of “a few rough-hewn spots” as the vampire section. Knock out one next week, the other the following week, and I can pull off an August finish by the skin of my teeth. If you keep in mind it’s free and gimmicky, and if you read it with one eye kinda squinted after ingesting the hallucinogen of your choice, there’s a small possibility it might not be the most loathsome abuse of the English language you’ve ever seen.

???? (henceforth known as the Non-Paranormal Erotic Short Experiment, or NPESE): Investigated distinction between voyeurism, scoptophilia/mixoscopia, and triolism. Reacquainted myself with frotteurism and other assorted paraphilias. Still fumbling for the reasons a couple of characters would consciously, deliberately, and with full awareness engage in some of these behaviors that are usually uncontrollable, unwelcome compulsions. “Because it’s fun to be naughty” just doesn’t have the impact I’m looking for, though it’s closer to the mark than “acting out in response to prior sexual trauma,” which is totally not in keeping with the tone of the story. Yanno, if it suddenly became paranormal, I bet the motivation would be crystal clear… but I’m not taking the easy way out yet. No rush. It’s a new idea. It will benefit from simmering on the back burner for a while.

(If you don’t have a DSM-IV, get one. It’s 800 pages of stories waiting to happen. Not necessarily romantic stories, but I wouldn’t dream of discouraging anyone from trying to mix true love, necrophilia, and HEA.)

(Scarily, as I typed “true love, necrophilia, and HEA,” a lightbulb flickered about NPESE’s hero’s issue. No obvious connection with corpse sex, but you have to wonder why that provides inspiration…)

Best search terms: People came here looking for “right brained people get angry” and “kerry allen + sex.”

According to a Blogthings quiz (even more reliable than the Magic 8 Ball), I’m equally right- and left-brained, and I never, ever get angry (or fib), so I’m afraid you were completely misdirected there.

As for the second, while I’m certainly flattered, I’m just not that kind of girl (unless you’re Trent Reznor or possibly John Cusack, in which case I’d abandon this nun-like charade faster than you could say, “Hey, baby, wanna—?”).

This picture has not been altered in any way by Angelic Daughter.

The glowing red eyes may be a symptom of allergies rather than evidence of the the inner evil, however.

I signed up for the el cheapo program with Neflix (one DVD at a time, only limit on the number per month is how fast I can watch them and get them back in the mail). A little while later, they sent me a notification that they were reducing the price. REDUCING. When was the last time anyone REDUCED the price of anything? Sometimes companies do that to lure in new customers, but existing customers are stuck with whatever deal they signed up for (*cough* cable *cough* phone company). Not Netflix. I didn’t even have to ask. I fell in lurve with Netflix that very day.

But that’s not the end of this lurve affair. Not by a long shot.

Once I received a disk that had been gouged in the auto mail sorter. I filled out the online form letting them know the disk was damaged. They emailed me within MINUTES to say they were sending a replacement, and I had it the next day.

Today, I get an email from Netflix apologizing profusely for a delay in sending my next DVD because their shipping system is down. They’re giving me a CREDIT to compensate me for my inconvenience. Keep in mind, I’ve been known to leave a disk sitting around unwatched for 2 weeks because I can’t be bothered to watch it, but if they can’t send one to me INSTANTLY, they offer me an apology and money.

I want to marry Netflix.

In a world where consumers have become resigned to getting shafted every time they deal with a business, it’s a treat to find one that doesn’t screw you over. But one that goes out of their way to treat you right…

True lurve.

I’m at Romancing the Blog again today, dispensing do-it-yourself tips for the unattached heroine who suddenly finds herself without a matchmaker (say, in the wake of lawsuits pertaining to a short-lived disaster of a television series).

And in random unrelated news, I lambasted the vet about the total inefficacy of every flea product in existence because I have used every oral, topical, accessory, prescription, and over-the-counter product in existence and still have an obsessively itchy dog. He says she doesn’t have fleas.

The dog is allergic to GRASS.

So she claws herself to bits, gets litterbox trained, or takes allergy medication for the rest of her life.

Needless to say, we’re going with the drugs.

(We’re all slightly allergic to her, so I thought, What delicious irony if she were allergic to people, but alas, no.)