Does It Count If

I open my w.i.p. and then 14 hours later close it? No changes or additions made. Just the open and the close. What do you think?

Techno Freak

So I admit, I don't do much with technology. My cell phone only makes calls and has no fancy ring tones. Just the one it came with. I don't text. I don't even have my cell phone number memorized. Even more pathetic, I don't have a voice mailbox set up for it. If I don't answer, you don't get me.

And that's just the cell phone. I don't tweet. I don't Facebook, I don't MySpace. I don't upload videos to YouTube.

I don't have call waiting on my home phone. If you call here and someone's talking, you'll actually get a busy signal.

Yet even with all I don't do, I'm light years ahead of where I was. I grew up with a rotary dial phone. No answering machine. I'd tell my friends to let it ring at least ten times before hanging up.

When I went to college in 1990, it was the first time I ever used a microwave or a washing machine and dryer. I bought myself a touch tone phone and an answering machine.

No, I wasn't Amish. It's how things were at my house. I grew up with three generations in one house. My grandmother's house. She was the quintessential matriarch of all times. Even though I was born in the seventies, I was raised like I was living in the forties. Just how it was.

And now, my friend has sent me a tiny youtube video for my cell phone and I'm scared. I'm not even sure if my cell phone will do it. The invite asks for my cell phone number, and I don't even know it to try. So I am officially a techno freak.

And if you've ever read this blog at all, you know I'm also a paranoid conspiracy theorist. So giving out information about myself will only exacerbate that part of my personality. Which usually yields crazed and embarrassing results. So I'm ignoring the invitation. I'm sticking my head in the sand and refusing to open that can of worms.

So there.

Summer Re-Runs

It's been really crazy at Chez Quinn, so I figured I'd think like a network executive, which is never a very good idea. Yet seeing as I have the lazy option in mind, it's quite appropriate.

Re-runs.

Here's the very first Tongue In Cheek posting. Enjoy the flashback.

The Nonsense of This Woman's Psyche in the Name of Motorcycle Riding

Back to the Nonsense

Alright, I've (mostly) gotten the seriousness off my chest. Here's a band who records good songs and makes awesome videos. A few months back, I posted the huge Rube Goldberg machine video they made. This one is just as ingenious, if not a little more so. You'll need to click through to YouTube to see it full screen. Seriously worth it. Enjoy!

OK Go - Here It Goes Again

Nothing to Joke About

I know the name up there says Tongue in Cheek, but today I just couldn't find the humor. I read a blog post yesterday that still is striking a chord in me. The arrogance and narrow view point of the author just boggled my mind. I have many similarities with the author. We are both white, suburban stay at home moms living in the United States. But though our demographics are strikingly similar, our world view is not.

This woman, with her condescending tone, preached to her choir about the horrors of . . . sending your child to daycare. She called it "child abandonment" and pulled observations out of her ass and passed them off as gospel.

Woman, I don't even know where to begin. Not all people who put their children in child care do it so they can "have the second income to be able to afford a second luxury car." They do it out of necessity. Secondly, abandonment means you leave and never come back. Not you leave, and pick them up in a few hours. It's been done for ages.

America survived and built itself during the "children should be seen, but not heard" era.

Just because you were raised during the "Baby on Board" generation where everyone gets a participation trophy and there are never any losers, doesn't mean that sending your child to preschool makes that parent the spawn of Lucifer.

Get a fricking world view. If the evils of dropping off at daycare are throwing shivers of horror down your spine, you need to expand your horizons.

Check into some of these real issues:
June's death toll for Afghanistan coalition forces were the highest of the entire war.

Stoning to death of female victims of rape

FGM still occurs today to millions of little girls.

Children conscripted into armies.



So, lady, before I jump down off my soap box and return to my regularly scheduled blog full of nonsense, remember this. Not every parent in the U.S. has the financial choice to stay at home with their children. Not only that, but most children, under the tutelage of caring professionals thrive and flourish in that environment, picking up new learning paths and social skills. Not every child should be exposed to only one point of view all day long. If they do, they'll end up as narrow minded and stunted in the knowledge of real world problems as you are and will never become a productive member of our free thinking society.

I Wore My Farmer Tan With Pride

So, I'm back. Back from vacation. To the beach. In the camper. I don't know if I'll ever be the same.

To begin with, I'm not a beach person. And then to have to rough it at a place that doesn't even make my top ten of happy destinations? You can imagine my mood. But it was all for the urchins, and even though I am a super villain in training, the little minions-to-be get indulged.

Now, I have bruises on my hips from sleeping on a sheet of plywood covered with a layer of foam that was laughingly referred to as a bed, enough sand in my house, clothing and washer to make my own beach, and a monstrous pile of laundry in league with the rampant sea monkey colony in my bathtub. Yet despite all that, Chez Quinn is almost back to normal.

At the beach I was the only woman to sport a farmer tan, and I did so with aplomb. I worked it like the hick that I've become. It's almost disappeared entirely and I might even be a little sad about that.

I also had a small bathing suit wardrobe malfunction. Suffice it to say, I may not be allowed back on that particular stretch of beach for a few years. So as an added little torture, I had to go bathing suit shopping with a next day deadline. The store that I chose had very little in my size. Every size was picked over. I was a bit surprised by the lack of choice at a beach. I finally had to settle for a very matronly suit that has so much extra fabric it could easily cover a battleship. Which was just the teeniest bit depressing. I've never worn such a conservative suit in my life.

So, that's it. Vacation is done for another year. I hope to God next year is better. It wasn't too terrible, but really; I paid for that experience? I must have a masochistic streak in me somewhere.

So let's hear it. Worst vacations ever. I will even give the sadists' rah rah cheer in the comments for all who share.