Simple America

How did February seem longer than January? It turned out to be much more fun than January. But how could February help it, when it has Valentines, Chinese New Year, and Mardi Gras. And the Super Bowl too! Cannot forget that.

Taxes have kept me busy this month and provide me with a reason to stay up until midnight. I so want a good long sleep. Though my children conspire to find reasons to get me out of bed early in the morning. Little rat finks.

My iPod has made one trip to California and needs to make a second. My hold switch does not function. When I mailed in the iPod the first time they just reloaded the software and set it up to run on a Mac. Thanks Apple Tech Support for reading the letter that explained my problem. NOT! So this time I talked to a human instead of trusting the online system. See what happens this time. I extended my warranty for a year because I have so much faith in them getting it right this time. I hope they get it fixed right this time. Need to load some music up so I can complete a tag from May.

In Houston we are experiencing the rodeo. This starts in February and goes through March. International folks, this is the time you really wanna come to Houston. You want to come here, right? There is barbecue, cowboys, and all kinds of animals to see. The rodeo is a big deal here. Professional cowboys vie for cash prizes doing insane things like riding a mad bull, or roping calves. Children present animals they have raised in Future Farmers of America programs and millions of dollars are raised for scholarships. Me. I just want to go see ZZ Top at the last show. Uh, how! How! How!

With the end of the month it is time to chupulate the Hug Hug Club tally. But we have a few new readers and there are quite a few new lurkers peeking too. So I must refer these folks to the Texas Hug Hug Club rules. Go read that and you will understand what is happening. Okay! Who won now that May went on vacation, traveled for work, and then moved? Lets see!

February’s post numbered 15, which is one less than January. Six of those posts were chupped fast and furiously by L B. Our favorite Malaysian in Italia tallied 33 points (6-1-0) and he beat the next chupster by 10. Talk about dominant male. I proudly give L B this Blue Star!

The battle for second was brutal. Throw in Chinese New Years absences and I was really holding my breath to see who would be in the two spot. The scores were very close with 23 points triumphing over the next best 20. Such competition. I was sweating from the heat these two ladies generated in their chupping. But on the 28th day Angel grabbed the Red Star from my hand. Good job young lady! Way to go.

That leaves the White Star for Chen for the second month in a row. Such hard work. Something tells me you may have tallied a few more chups if you had not been distracted by Pink Cotton in Sarawak.

So will March be an intense month for chuppers? i think so. We have some new faces in the crowd and who among them will be vying for Ribbons. Rinnah maybe? Jo perhaps? We’ll have to wait and see. No resting on the top. Plus May has new roots. You better be fast now that Maccie has a new home. And one of these month’s my good mei mei, mistipurple, is going to get every single ribbon. I just feel it coming.

The point totals for February are:

LB 33 (6-1-0)

Angel 23 (2-4-1)

Chen 20 (2-2-4)

mistipurple 11 (1-2-0)

Rinnah 9 (0-3-0)

May 8 (1-0-3)

Bkworm 7 (1-0-2)

Daphnewood 6 (1-0-1)

Fantasyflier 5 (1-0-0)

Car@ 4 (0-1-1)

Huei 3 (0-1-0)

Wuching 3 (0-1-0)

Alisa 1 (0-0-1)

Etchen 1 (0-0-1)

M 1 (0-0-1)

The other day The Giddy Tiger dropped by and she introduced herself with a tag. This tag has been going around all over and I had been wondering when it would land in my comment box. So let’s see how this one goes. Five Questions!

1) Who is the first blogger you’ve met?
I have not met any other bloggers in person yet. Well except for Ed and Flametoad who happen to be my biz partners that introduced me to blogging. But I have not had a face to face with anyone that I met on the internet.

2) Who is the ‘Most wanted to meet blogger?’ for you?
How to answer this question? There is not a blogger on my roll that I do not wanna meet. Anyway I cannot meet everyone at once? 

3) Who is the ‘I can meet, want to meet but somehow never got to meet’ blogger?
Everybody lah… Plays off #2 in my case. Wanna meet everyone, have not met one. Not even stood up. 

4) Who are the group of bloggers you most wanted to meet?
Thats easy. The southeast Asian bloggers. From Bangkok to Australia. Hey I know Australia is not in Asia, but if you pull out your contac lenses and squint while standing on one foot while looking at the Atlas you won’t notice one bit. I don’t at least.

5) Do you have any bloggers/blog readers that you wish to meet right now?
Huh? 

Didn’t this get covered in #2? Huh? Huh?

Oh well. Over so quick. *lights cigarette* Wuz it good for you?

Not tagging anybody, cuz my brain is dead. Plus I think I am one of the last to fill this out. Be good or don’t get caught. =P

Eastcoastlife has tagged me and I could not refuse accepting this meme. It is a most worthy cause and it hits close to home. This is a call out to pornographers to password protect adult content so children cannot access it. I already had to set up a bunch of parental controls on my home computers, but it would be nice to get some help from the source. No child needs to be exposed to this stuff.

So here is the Blogger Power message:

Please require a password-protected login before allowing even free access to explicit adult content. We understand that selling porn is your business and we respect your right to make a legal living. But understand our legitimate concerns and work with us. You already have the “warning adult content” on your websites. Yet kids, who are not legal customers of your product, ignore the warning. So to prevent them from having direct access to explicit images, texts and sounds, the simplest way is to have a password-protected login. No more “free tours” before a visitor supplies basic information.

Okay. Any questions? I think it is pretty simple and common sense. No business person should feel threatened. We just want to take care of our kids. Okay?

I am not going to tag anyone. But I implore those of you that have children, love children, know someone that has a child, see a child on your travels around your home, or knew a child once to take up this cause. It is a just thing to do.

My boy groans through all attempts to learn Chinese. Whenever his mother tries to teach him a word or phrase, he is prone to vanish. The only Chinese culture that interests him is the food. He has no problem cleaning his plate. I must admit he could really improve his chances of landing a good job, if he would learn how to converse in Chinese.

Chinese New Year is a time that kids have to respect their elders. By showing their respect, a child (or unmarried young adult) receives a red envelope or angpao. My kids love angpao as they contain money. How do kids show respect? Well they have to greet their elders and wish them a Happy New Year. Then they state their hope that the elder will be blessed with wealth, health, and happiness. It is kind of formulaic.

The twist is the kids must speak these phrases in Chinese. Well the kids in my house have to say the proper phrases in Chinese. My daughter does this well. My son suffers. It is almost brutal to see the struggle the lad goes through as he tries to speak these phrases. My missus demands a good attempt before she hands him his angpao.

Sunday he became frustrated after several attempts. He stated that he cannot speak right. The words are too hard.

So I just laughed at him. I told him Chinese is not that hard. He claimed the words are too hard. I said that is no excuse. He said the words are too big. I said Chinese is a bunch of little words, that learned how to get along. Both of my womenfolk liked that. My girl is planning on stealing that thought from me.

But for my son? Well he got his angpao shortly thereafter. So maybe I inspired him.

Friday I was off, and so were my kids so it gave me a day to sleep in a bit. Get charged up for the Chinese New Years festivities that were imminent. Spent most of the day closing the books of 12 to Midnight. In fact most of Friday and Saturday were spent working on the books. I need to get the budget devised. Little behind here. Crap. The January budget may be pretty accurate.

The only time I left the house Friday was to take the kids to classes. My son had Tae Kwan Do and my daughter had a piano lesson. I did not feel like doing a whole lot in the evening. Working on the books can really jelly my brains and quick.

Saturday my wife dropped my son off at Tae Kwan Do and she visited the Chinese grocery store. She came home with enough food to feed an army. Then I learned that everyone in the family is coming over for dinner. Cool. So I chilled the beers leftover from the Super Bowl and went back to work on the books.

As we got closer to evening I had to clean up the house a bit. Be the missus gofer, dishwasher, kid job reminder, etc…

Finally everything is set. My #3 brother-in-law +family and #4 sister-in-law + boy friend arrived. It was a nice evening of chicken feet, roasted duck, barbecue pork (char siew), and of course fish. The missus picked up some lormaikai for dessert too. My niece baked a cake that was so wonderfully moist. Glad she could come home for the weekend from University. Wonderful evening.

Sunday I was kicked nudged out of bed as we had to meet my wife’s friends for dim sum at 10:30. We had a good time, though we were really crowded. Imagaine 14 people at one table. And one lady got so mad cause she was given a chopstick wrapper with one stick. She pulled it out and threw it forcefully at the table. Woman cried out about bad luck and such. I thought worse luck if the stick you throw pokes somebody in the eye. She brooded for like 10 minutes too. Some people need to grow up. If my luck is made by a chop stick I don’t have much of a life. But the rest of the meal went by without event. Lots of fun talking and eating. Just heaven on those little plates.

Afterwards we went to another Chinese grocery store. This really increased my mood for Chinese New Year. So many toddlers dressed in traditional red or blue coats. All kinds of special foods. We had to buy more food, as my daughter’s friends were invited for a sleep over Sunday night. And they wanted some real Chinese food.

The afternoon was horrible between coming home from shopping and the girls arrival. I tried to install a new wireless router so we could have a better signal in my house. No dice. The signal on this supposed good router proved horrible, actually slower. So I wasted three hours trying to get it to work right. Going to take the router back and get the signal booster I intended  to buy in the first place.

Three of my daughters classmates came over for the night. All of them are caucasian and really eager to try some real Chinese food. My wife made them some fried rice, fried dumplings, and beef noodles. She was quite concerned about the noodles. She bought a Phillipino style noodle and not the Chinese egg noodles she intended to purchase. I liked them, but she was not happy about getting the wrong noodles. One thing I have learned is Chinese really have a discriminating pilatte. They notice things about food I would never consider. Still cannot after all these years of being half Chinese. lol

The night was pretty quiet. Except for the five teenagers. Yeah I got woke up a couple of times. Plus I had to work while they were off for President’s Day. Kids!

It was a nice weekend. But as I read more Asian blogs, I really get the urge to experience Chinese New Years over there. Get a fuller understanding of the holiday and eat some foods that might not be found in the USA.

Gong Xi Fat Choy to all of my readers.

Wishing you, your families and loved ones all of the happiness, prosperity and health that a person can possibly stand. May the year of the pig be good to you and yours.

In a fit of revenge Chinese New Year’s preparation, Huei has tagged me. This tag involves answering what to do when you are bored. Oh gosh. This has to be the most difficult tag, as I am never bored. I believe if you can think you will not be bored. An active mind just cannot dwell on boredom.

So maybe I can give some tips on how not to be bored. And then I can fulfill my obligation as Huei’s slave tagee.

This time of year I can never be bored. Why? Taxes! I do my taxes. Those for my companies. And then I contract to help some folks with their taxes too. Though I have to admit. Taxes are not a fun way to relieve boredom. But you can never be bored when you are scared to death you might make a mistake and go to jail or get penalized the big bucks.

Writing occupies a lot of free time. In fact I need more free time for writing. I am helping my buddy Ed finish 12 Hours to Midnight. This is a kick ass modern horror adventure that is due to hit the market this summer. It is X-Files meets 24 and just plain rocks. I hope I can finish Episode Seven this weekend.

When my brain turns to jello there is gaming. Guildwars is a MMORPG that I like a great deal. My favorite part is you do not have to pay a monthly subscription like World of Warcraft. But it is a bonus that the game has a rich story to it as well. Madden 2007 is also nice in that I can go online and get stomped on, beat up, and cussed at. I love football. Then there is the X-Box where I can just shoot stuff. I can go to the old West with Gun or the future with Gears of War. Does not matter. Just shoot shoot shoot.

Then there is roleplaying when the kids have time from school. I just got ahold of the 4th edition of Shadowrun as an early burpday present and I really want to play this with the kids. Something about elven magic users getting their spell book hacked by trolls is appealing to me.

And then there are card games to play too. When my son is grounded from playing World of Warcraft online, the clever lad tricks me into playing the card game with him. Foiled again. But it is fun.

So you can see it is difficutl to get bored. And I have not even tried to mention the TV shows I follow. Heroes, Lost, Supernatural, and Survivor keep away the boredom monkey too.

Your Candy Heart Says “Hug Me”

A total sweetheart, you always have a lot of love to give out.   Your heart is open to where ever love takes you! Your ideal Valentine’s Day date: a surprise romantic evening that you’ve planned out Your flirting style: lots of listening and talking What turns you off: fighting and conflict Why you’re hot: you’re fearless about falling in love

Happy Valentines Day to all of my readers. May you get all the kisses, hugs, and hand holding a body can stand.

This post is about linking chains. I picked it up from Lucia and you can see her post here. This something that is being done to help folks increase hits. It is called PR too. So I am choose to promote you. If you wanna.

**Instructions**

Write a post, and copy and paste my list from below into it. Make sure the links are active and correct. If your blog is on that list, remove it because your post isn’t about self-promotion. Don’t worry, because if your name is on mine, it’s on others and will spread. Add your favourite deserving blogs to the top of the list (not compulsory). Publish the post. People will notice the incoming links, and hopefully write their own z-list posts. The result will be that we all get more links pointing to our blogs, and more readers - got to be good!

Key Points
1) Create a new post on your blog.
2) Copy and Paste the entire list of blog links below
3) Add any blogs that you want to include near the top of the list. (Optional)
4) Include the blog where you first got the list from, on the list in your post.
5) Do not include your own blog links on the list in your post.
6) Make sure that all links are copied intact.
7) Publish the Post.

My Adds:

eastcoastlife

Little Cozy Corner

A Journey Called Life

Dead Boredom Seeking Freedom

Originals:

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Some of the comments to my 10 Things I Like About Work inspired this meme. In the previous meme I wrote about my publishing company which is a labor of love, though it does support a small portion of my gaming addiction. This meme will focus on my day job. The employment that traps me Monday to Thursday from 9:00am to 7:30pm.

1. I hate waking up at 5:45. And of course the first thing I do when I wake up is awaken the kids, as their alarms don’t seem to do the trick. I need to change the radio station on their alarm clock. Maybe polka will get em out of bed.
2. I hate driving 75 miles to work and then 55 miles back to home. Why the difference? In the morning I drop off the kids at school. And next week they start major highway construction that is really going to clog things up. They promise no timetable of when it shall be complete either. No easy way around it either. 
3. I hate dealing with unmotivated bureaucrats that only care about receiving the next grant or appropriation.
4. I hate being introduced as the Gestapo. I’m an auditor not a fascist.
5. I hate having to always confirm the cash counts. Money is dirty. I don’t wanna touch it unless I can take it home with me.
6. I hate being the “Oh he can do it” guy. Why? Because apparently no one else wants to do it.
7. I hate being a liason for the audit, though the mail from the external auditors is never directed to me. In fact, I am usually the last to find out. Usually it is, “What are you doing here?” Response: “Didn’t you get the memo?” Crap!
8. I hate being considered a part of department, when I have oversight of that department. Something should be done to differentiate this position from all other departments. It would only improve independence. Begging for the change does not seem. Neither has writing an audit charter.
9. I hate that everyone is always looking at everyone else to make sure that no one is getting treated with favorotism. Hey that’s my job dammit!
10. I hate working with people that are unmotivated to improve themselves. They are only motivated by when they can receive their first retirement check. I can hear them count the days until they can file for that compensation, frequently. come on you have over ten years to work. Shut up! Yeah I want to retire some day. But that’s not the focus right now. I would prefer a challenge please.

The good news is I have a second interview today. Hopefully this position will pan out. It definitely offers an excellent challenge. Don’t know what it pays, but it offers a much shorter drive. It is ten minutes to the kids school. No auditing beyond an occasional lead schedule. Would be back to preparing Financial Statements, which I truly enjoy. I think they are creating a new accounting system and that would rock. To be at the ground level of a new system of accounts. This is about the most fun you can have as a bean counter. And I might literally be counting beans since this is the restaurant biz.

Angeleyes has tagged me. While I think I did this one earlier, it is okay. I know if I think a bit there are plenty of things you guys still don’t know about me. Actually Angeleyes has a cute baby boy, so I have decided to mention things that happened when I am still a youngster in Phoenix, Arizona.

1. My brother used to play with me a lot when I was a little. He was eleven years older so he was much bigger than me during our Phoenix days. Walt Disney produced a  show about the American frontier hero, Davey Crockett, and it was my favorite at the time. One day my brother and I were playing Davey Crockett and I knocked him out with my rifle. Little bro did not play play.
2. Another game we used to play was cowboy and cow. This was a lot of fun to me then. It also drew a crowd of neighbor kids to watch. Truly, I enjoyed that attention. I always played the calf and my brother had a lasso that he would use to rope me around the neck. My mom was always worried that I would break my neck playing that game.
3. My grandfather gave me a little red tractor. I would peddle that thing everywhere. One of the neighbors had a little rise in the backyard that we called a mountain. It was easy to peddle up and you could catch some speed going down the slope. A bunch of us kids were playing over the mountain one day. I managed to go down a little too fast and my tractor teetered over and on top of my knee. I sprung the darn thing for the first time. But not the last.
4. We had a little chihuahua named Teddy. He was not our first pooch, but I liked him a lot. He was the only thing around that I was bigger than, so what do you expect. I remember putting his leash on him and Teddy would drag me up and down the street. I would be running to keep up shouting out his name. Eventually my brother or mother would come and rescue me. Next day I would do it again.
5. My stepfather bought a pair of scooters with sidecars. The main reason for having the sidecars was for delivering newspapers to make extra money. I remember sitting in a sidecar stuffed full of papers. When he needed to toss a paper I would hand him one and we did this for the entire route. Those scooters were a lot of fun.