Christine the Curmudgeon

Christine the Curmudgeon is getting tired of winter.  Most notably, the seemingly never-ending War of the Thermostat.  Too many times, Mr. Curmudgeon complains about being cold, when I am sweating my ‘nads off.  The only thing that shuts him up is for me to click up the heat, and suffer.  But as soon as he’s asleep, I sneak and click it back down.

Seriously, Thermostat Cat has good advice.  PUT ON A SWEATER!  Sheesh!  And then who is the first to bitch when the oil heat bill comes?  If you guessed “Mr. C”, you win a cookie. That is, if Thermostat Cat hasn’t eated it yet…LOL!

If he really gets that cold at night, why can’t Mr. C just get himself an electric blanket? If he’s cold and I’m not, then he can just use it on his side of the bed. No having to crank the heat up to 80º, we save money, no problem.

I can’t wait ’til it’s spring!

Christine the Curmudgeon has decided to have a new category here, called adventures of octo-mom.  So, now all of my rantings about this batshit insane woman can be easily found in one convenient place.  But fear not…any profit I make off of this blog will either go to me, or to causes I feel are worthwhile.  Not one red cent will be going to this crazy woman.

The latest thing is that someone offered her a million bucks to do porn.  The first image I had in mind when I heard this had something to do with someone throwing a hot dog into the Grand Canyon, if you get my drift.  I will just leave it at that.

But hey…she said no.  For the sake of these kids that she didn’t think much about when she chose to bring them into the world, having no job, no husband, and no suitable place to live.

So shall we now crown her Mother of the Year?

So Christine the Curmudgeon watched Dr. Phil’s 2-parter of his interview with the infamous Octo-Mom.  Yeah, he must have paid her for this, does anyone go on that show for free?  Anyhoo, for the most part, it was good, because Dr. Phil did ask her some serious questions.

Until the very end, that is.  Dr. Phil told the audience that his main concern was for the 14 kids, as it should be.  So do you know what he did?  He set up a section on his drphil.com website, asking viewers to help this woman, be it with time (if they live in the area) or money.

DR. PHIL – WHY WHY WHY ARE YOU ENABLING THIS WOMAN?

You see, at the end, he said that Octo-Mom called him from the hospital, where she was visiting with the babies.  She confirmed something we’d all been suspecting…that the hospital was not willing to release the babies to her unless she could show that she had a suitable home for them.

As we all know, she does not.  She lives in a three-bedroom house that is facing foreclosure, with her mother and six other kids.  Is her father in the picture?  I’m not sure.  Anyhoo, that house is too small for everyone who already lives there, where in the blue hell are they gonna put eight more babies?

Octo-Mom told Dr. Phil all about how she is hoping to rent a larger apartment or something.  With what?  I suppose it will be with the money that she got from the good doctor.  And forget about an apartment of even a house, she’s gonna need a large piece of commercial real estate to make enough room for her family.

I’ll say it again – DR. PHIL – WHY WHY WHY ARE YOU ENABLING THIS WOMAN?

He says it’s for the sake of the innocent children.  And I agree, to an extent.  But why reward HER?  If she can’t scrape together the cash to find a bigger place to live, the kids will be cared for, just not in her custody.  What I truly think would be best for those kids if they were taken away and placed for adoption.  There are plenty of people out there who want kids but can’t have them, people who are equipped to take care of them properly.  Nadya Suleman is NOT.  That woman is one beer short of a six-pack, and I’m being kind here.  Maybe I should say that she is more like three or four beers short of a six-pack.

If she is rewarded for her irresponsible behavior, by Dr. Phil or anyone else, what is to stop her from trying to do this again?  Even worse, what is to stop someone else from trying this, so they can go on Dr. Phil and cash in, as well?

I still woudn’t give this woman a dime, I’m not going to help her keep those kids.  I’ll only be happy with this whole mess if I hear that they were taken away and other people adopted them.  And I hope that whoever does adopt them will not tell them about the media circus from which they came, at least not until they are adults.  Let them have normal lives, in normal homes, growing up like normal kids.

Even though Dr. Phil did say a lot of things to her that I agreed with, his little begging drive on his website is enough to make me boycott his show forever.

These are both hot topics these days. However, Christine the Curmudgeon has been doing a lot of this stuff for years, long before it became the “in” thing to do.

In my opinion, anyone who uses disposable alkaline batteries in electronic stuff, such as digital cameras, may as well just be flushing their money down the toilet. When I bought my first digital camera years ago, it came with disposable batteries. They only lasted for about maybe a dozen pictures. I knew that if I didn’t invest in a battery charger and rechargeable batteries, I’d go broke.

I now have a regular camera that takes 2 AA batteries, and a Flip video camera which also takes 2 AAs.  Not only am I saving a fortune with the charger, but I’m helping the environment by not forever throwing away dead batteries.

The initial expense for the rechargeables is a bit more than disposables, but they pay for themselves VERY quickly. I have a Ray-O-Vac charger, a model that they don’t seem to make any more. But I did find one on sale that is very similar – this rapid charger. A rapid charger can often recharge your batteries in as little as one hour.

If you already have a charger and just need new batteries, you may want to consider this – this battery bundle with a free micro-mouse.

My charger will also charge up those tiny AAA batteries, and I do have a few things that use them.  For example, this FM transmitter for my iPod.  The Curmudgeon-mobile does not have a plug for an iPod, but this thing lets me listen to it over the car speakers.  However, it requires 2 AAA batteries, and it sucks up the juice pretty fast.

So you see, a small initial investment will pay for itself very quickly, and help the environment!

By the way, if you are interested in learning more about going green, check out a cool new site called Green Hangout.  It’s a forum where members can exchange ideas and suggestions with one another…to both save money and the planet!

Christine the Curmudgeon knows that many workplaces block certain websites.  I can see the sense in that, if they are gambling or “adult” sites.  People don’t need to be looking at stuff like that at work.

But Mr. Curnudgeon’s work has gotten ridiculous about this.  First, they blocked MassLottery.com, which was not blocked before.  Okay, the lottery IS gambling, but you can’t do any actual gambling from that site.  Basically all anyone can do there is see what the winning numbers are.

They have also blocked the Registry of Motor Vehicles and the FastLane sites.  Why, I don’t know.

The latest thing is that they have blocked pretty much all sites that offer online greeting cards.  Sometimes I see a cute and funny one someplace, and I want to send it to Mr. C at work.  He always enjoyed getting them.

But soon I noticed that I would get no response after sending him the cards.  I asked about this, and sent him a direct link to the card.  He’d come back and tell me that the website was blocked.

Sheesh, how heartless can these people be?  These employees work hard all day, would it really kill the company to at least let them get a little chuckle from a funny online card once in a while?

I guess it’s those who goof off online at work too much who ruin things for the rest of us.  But sheesh, why not just identify those who goof off and fire them?

Makes no sense to me!