Oh, can I just say yyyyyyaaaaay! Angel!Squeal!

The 80′s, as you may already be aware, was awash with really awful television. Unlike now when we have such gems as Kept and Dancing With the Stars (which is actually quite reminiscent of 80′s schlock).

What is amazing, when you think of 80′s tv, is that anything got thrown out. What could be worse than the Donny and Marie Show? I was recently thinking of two shows that I really liked when I was say, 10 or so, and they were quickly cancelled. This was my first realization that I did not, in fact, control what was on the televison, and dispelled the lingering idea that the people on tv were tiny people dancing around for my amusement. I have not been able to find references to either one of them, but I did find this great site. It’s not completed, so maybe I will be able to find my old shows in the future.

The first immediately cancelled show starred the dad from Silver Spoons and was set in Frontier Days. Silver Spoons Dad took his family from the city to the frontier, and wackyness ensued. The one scene I remember was of the wife sweeping the floor and saying, “This floor just won’t get clean” and the husband reminding her that the floor is made of dirt.

The second one was sort of like The Facts of Life; in fact, I don’t really remember the difference, except that one of the girls living in the house (the tough, outsider “Jo” character) was being criticized for smoking in a Very Special Episode. At the end, “Jo” freaks out and tells them that she beat a drinking habit when she was 10, her parents were drug addicts but she never got into drugs; basically she says that she thought she was doing really well considering, and all you self righteous prigs can just shove it. It was pretty gritty for a Facts of Life spinoff, and perhaps led to my love of Quentin Tarantino movies. Maybe not, though.

And now, complete with Teen Endangerment! Read the Quiz about Abstinence Only programs being taught *now* in schools. It’s horrifying. If you have to lie and twist the truth to make your point, perhaps your point isn’t actually correct. It boils my blood how conservatives and religious types think that whatever worked for them will clearly work for everybody else, across the board. It’s such a “head up my own ass” way of thinking, I just can’t stand it. Grr. Hulk Mad! Hulk Angry! Grr!

I TiVo’ed the new show 30 Days, and today it was about how hard it is to live on minimum wage. Now, those of you who know me know that we are pretty broke most of the time, but damn, I had forgotten how craptacular it is to be “college days broke”. And I knew I wouldn’t always live like that, being in college and all, and having a large family that wouldn’t let me live on the streets. Still, some days (weeks, months) it was tough going, and even now we’re not where I want us to be, not by a long shot. But, damn. That’s one stressful show.

So in the middle of the show, the doorbell rings. It’s some inner city kid, cute as a button, selling magazines. I let the poor thing pitch his pitch, and I was almost going to get a magazine, too, except that a subscription to Maxim was $65!!! WTF? Have I mentioned that we have been spending too much money? And we just don’t have that kind of cash to toss away on stupid stuff, or even charity? And if I was going to give to charity it would be to PBS because the government is cutting their funding?

Anyway, I had to send him on his way, and now I am feeling really guilty, and then I’m feeling guilty for being nervous that he’s going to send his magazine subscription buddies to come into my house and kill us all in our sleep, all the while yelling: “If you had bundled it with GQ and Esquire, it would only be $125!!!” (it’s his buddies who come and kill us, because he did seem really nice, and called my baby cute.)

Ugh. Regular guilt and white guilt all at once. I need a vacation.
(Which I can’t afford! But I can afford it more than this poor kid can! And he has a baby, too! [wait, was that a lie so I would feel connected to him and I would buy more magazines??? Is he really a computer programmer like Orlando Jones in Office Space? Damn, he's good.])

TinyMuffin has been full of fever, and is now full of snot. Oh and she may be allergic to grass. So we’ve been busy, not to mention the job I stupidly signed on for. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Which I now have to get back to. Sorry. I suck. But, hey! I’ll suck more in a couple of weeks when I have 3 kids to look after instead of just one. Mmm, summer. Can’t wait.

I am sure you have noticed the most recent attempt to get past spam filters is the use of names in the subject lines of email. I got my favorite one today:

500% more sperm Enid

Oh Enid, you and your sperm.

Hey! Has anyone noticed how great it is to nurse a hot sweaty baby when the humidity is at 8 billion percent? It’s great!

Time to hit the kiddie pool before we burst into water droplets via osmosis with the air. (My science may be a little sketchy, but I am pretty sure that happens.)

I heart the Internet. The internet is great. It is super great when it is used for the purposes of good, not evil. Clever, clever.

While I would not at all like to get one of those, I would like to get These. If I were not on a semi-spending freeze, you would all be getting one in the mail. This administration is scary, and we all need to know there are un-insane people out there.

I am sitting here watching the baby spin around on her belly, powered by her hands pushing on the floor. It is a sight to see-she rolls around, super slow so as not to bump her head on the floor, and then spins to get to the thing she wants. Sometimes she just spins. She’s alterna-crawling.

That baby is goddam cute!