It's late -- or early, actually. I should be asleep, but I'm not. Why do I stay up so late? 
Hubby and went out to do some gambling tonight and I played quarter machines, which I rarely do. But the nickel machines were doing nothing for me, so I finally just said hell with it, and put some dough into a quarter machine. I put in $5 and hit an $80 jackpot. Yay! I immediately cashed out.
Then I put some more dough into another quarter machine since some guy had taken the machine I'd won on. I did the first spin and won another $80 jackpot. So I immediately cashed out again and took the money and ran. You gotta cash out when you win so you can foil the plan of the evil casino to take all your money. Heh. 
I have lots to say but I just don't have time. Maybe next week. And I'll post photos as well!
I'm still watching way too much Olympics and staying up way too late to do it. I was not super excited about about the Olympics before they got going but once they did, I just kept watching. It was cool tonight watching the Stephanie Brown Trafton win the gold medal for the U.S. in the discus. She came from out of left field (OK, not literally) to win it and that's great. I also got to see the men's 400 hurdles and see the U.S. men sweep all three medals in the event. It was so exciting.
OK, OK. I said I was over U.S. track and field, but they won me over with this stuff. So I guess I lied. And Afton, I do agree with you about Bolt. He's the most dominating racer I've ever seen but he just didn't acquit himself well in the 100. I've never been a big fan of grandstanding.
I'm with Afton: that Michael Phelps butterfly race was amazing.And I got to see him win his eighth gold medal. I will admit to being a little melancholy that Mark Spitz's record was overtaken, however. I was around to see Spitz do his thing and that iconic photo of him with those seven golds around his neck is something I'll never forget. He was so handsome and still is. And Mr. Phelps just isn't. Good swimmer, though.
Nothing can beat that 400 free relay, though. I think I'm in love with Jason Lezak. 
I find myself terribly uninterested in the U.S. track and field team which has started up now. All those idiots who drugged up and then lied to us when they won their tainted gold medals in the past (yeah, I'm talking about you, Marion Jones) have ruined it for me. I don't trust any of them and I don't care about any of them. It's sad that these new runners are tainted by what those other jerks did but that's just the way it is.
The last couple of weeks have been pretty ultra-stressful around here for a variety of reasons. Today just added to the stress because hubby called and left a message for me at work to tell me he'd hit a deer on the way to work this morning.He wasn't hurt but his pickup truck was and he is really bummin'. Hubby goes to work really early when it's still dark, and he was driving down the hill and suddenly there she was right in front of him. He hit her with the right front bumper of the truck and it appears the impact spun her around and she smashed into the passenger side door because the door is all dented in. Hubby is so sad about his truck but also sad about the deer. She was gone when he went back to check so he's not sure how badly she was injured. There's no blood on his truck, which is good but still ... 
So it's back to calling the insurance xompany and opening another claim. We went probably 15 years without making a single claim and now we've had two in one year. We just updated all our insurance a month or so ago after we finally got all the homeowners stuff wrapped up from the flood. At that time we added rental car coverage to our insurance so that was lucky because now we're going to need it while hubby's truck is in the body shop. It's going to be awhile before we can get this all taken care of but at least his truck is driveable and he can get in and out the driver's side door so it's not impossibly inconvenient.
If I'd hit the deer in my car, it probably would have come through my windshield. I get to drive to work in the daylight, though, so usually I can spot them ahead of time. It's impossible in the dark sometimes.
Dang it
I downloaded the newest version of Firefox and it really seems to be an improvement. I haven't had time to explore everything yet, but bookmarks seem better and it does seem much faster. I'm all for speeding things up on the Web. I just wish it had an "jerkface blocker" feature. Wouldn't the Web be a much nicer place if the nasties were all gone?
However, nasty is in the eye of the beholder, so that probably wouldn't work. I just really have to work harder on not reading things that look like they'll get me riled. Sometimes you just don't know until you get there and start reading. And even if it's a site you visit often and enjoy, sometimes there will just be something there that's annoying.
I've just noticed this Olympics that when swimmers leave their goggles on their foreheads before swimming, then move them onto their eyes, it often leaves these weird little marks on their foreheads. Katie Hoff has them and, in conjunction with her tiny little eyebrows, it looks really bizarre, like she has a second set of eyes up there. The first time I saw it, they really creeped me out.
Must quit watching Olympics. Must sleep. But it's so good.
Anyone notice how young the Chinese "women" gymnasts are? Check out photos of them ... they're supposed to be 16 but there's no way they are. One of them weighs 68 pounds. Hmmmmm.
Here's what I don't get: the male gymnasts wear a unitard like the women but then they wear pants or shorts over it, depending on what they're doing. Why? Why don't they have to hang their butt cheeks out there like the women do?
I will never understand the differences in the bottoms of men and women's athletic wear or swim suits. Little boys wear big baggy shorts that cover and hid all their private parts. Little girls wear skin tight, revealing bottoms that often show most of their butts.
Of course, a lot of parents let their daughters out of the house wearing shorts or sweats with suggestive words written across the butt as well, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised. It's gross, is all.
Well, grandson is gone again so things are quieter around here. He's so much like one of his uncles was when he was grandson's age, it's scary. And I sent the joke book home with him, so my work here is done.
I also printed off several of the photos I took of him when we were out having fun Saturday so he was thrilled with those. When he got home, the first thing he did was pull them out and show them off. He also got a new baseball cap and a new T-shirt out of us. Good thing he left, or we'd be a lot poorer.
I saw a young woman the other day (I'm no good at ages -- maybe 19 or 20?) who was wearing a tight, stretchy halter. It was white and the kind that covers the front, ties at the neck and leaves the back open to the waist. It wasn't particularly revealing in the front or anything but she was wearing a black bra. It was just the run-of-the-mill black lace bra and it looked horrible with all the clasps and stuff hanging out and showing in the back. It was such a bizarre look and not a good one.
There's a reason they call them "undergarments." 
~~~
Holy cow, I have been watching the Olympics tonight and they've been showing a lot of swimming. I just saw the most exciting race -- it was the men's 100 meter freestyle relay and everyone said the French should win. The French team had been talking some serious trash, saying they came to smash the Americans, which is OK as long as you can back it up. The NBC commentator Rowdy Gaines said no matter how he penciled it out, the French would win because they were just that much better.
But the U.S. men won the gold in an amazing race where Lezak had to come from behind in the final leg. Wow.
I thought of another one of those misheard sayings I've heard or found on the Web: "beckon call."
Wrong: She has that guy at her beckon call.
Right: She has that guy at her beck and call.
Snerk.
Interestingly, this site has a great write-up about how the phrase "beckon call" is all over the Internet, even though it's wrong. Clearly a lot of people think it's the correct way of saying it, even though it makes absolutely no sense when used in the context of "beck and call." The site says, "Let's hope 'beckon call' dies a natural death, not only because it is essentially just a spelling mistake but because its adoption would signal the last gasp of the enjoyable little word 'beck'." It also says as of "
(January 2007) Google finds 28,000 hits for 'beckon call' and 474,000 for 'beck and call'."
See, here's the deal: Just because 28,000 hits on Google a year and a half ago say "beckon call" is correct, doesn't mean it is. Don't believe everything you read on the Web.
~~~
My Mariners have won three of their last four. This doesn't matter in the sense of this season, which was lost way back in May, but it does matter in the sense of it's far more fun to watch your team win than lose. And they've lost a LOT this season.
What's really cool is they have been come-from-behind wins and tonight's was a walk-off solo home run in the bottom of the ninth by none other than my favorite player, Raul Ibanez. What's not to love about that guy?
~~~
On the drive home from work tonight, there was a gorgeous rainbow over to the east. We had some rain this afternoon downtown where I work but up at our house, hubby informed me we just got a few drops. Too bad, because our yard could sure use some wet.
~~~
Remember: It's all fun and games ... until it's not.
Mandy, I didn't want to bring up her hair because 1) I was trying to keep things professional and I had to write up a synopsis of her talk for publication in something and so I just wanted to make sure I had her name spelled correctly; and 2) I was afraid if I talked to her about her hair, I would have been speechless because it was so mesmerizing. I thought about a wig, but I really looked closely at her hairline (I was seated almost right next to her) and I'm fairly certain it was real. But I know what you mean about women liking compliments on their hair. I once was so fascinated by the hair of a woman in church, I had to tell her how cool it was. And then one day when I was in church, a woman behind me touched me and told me how beautiful she thought my hair was, so ... it was nice. 
I had a busy evening tonight, puttering around outside watering, pruning roses and talking to the neighbors. I had a long conversation with the neighbors next door over the fence, during which they begged me for some apples off our tree when they're ripe (no problem) and then I got a few more things watered and then the other neighbor behind me was calling for me because he had some stuff to tell me. It's what I like about summer, though: everyone's outside doing stuff and talking. It's funny because while we'll often wave and/or say hi in the winter, we don't usually have any long conversations because no one's hanging out in the yards much. In the spring, everyone gets outside and then we all have to catch up with each others' lives.
Sunday, while I was out washing my car, I had a long conversation in my driveway with our neighbor across the street. He'd been out of town on business for a few weeks so I had to catch up with him. It's been very social around our neighborhood lately.
Would you like 2 exchange blog links? Best wishes... 
Merry Christmas, Jeanie!! 
Hope you had a great Thanksgiving! 
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