BRER Real Estate Marketing Blog

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you might remember that I’ve talked about Southern bugs once before.  And, I imagine this time I’ll start getting hits from the search engines when people look up cockroach or water bug.  But, that’s OK.

For any of you who got here using that kind of a search, I apologize.  This is just a Whimsical Wednesday post, not an information site about insects.

There are pesky cockroaches lurking about outside here all year around, I imagine.  But, there are times when they seem more determined to join us in the house than others.  I’m not really sure what triggers it, since I’m not really a cockroach expert, but the first sign is that you’ll see a couple belly-up in the garage.  That’s the clue that the roaches are on the move indoors.

So, the other night, I was sitting quietly in the living room when in FLEW a cockroach, closely followed by my cat.   Of course, we all know the little devils can fly, but generally by the time they get in the house, they’re too groggy from the bug spray to work up much energy for it.

The only thing I can assume is that Joey found the bug shortly after it slithered through whatever crack it found to get in the house, and the bug was still pretty perky.

An insect that size in flight is an awesome sight.  Especially when it ends up landing on your living room furniture.  So, this was no time for fooling around.  I raced for the vacuum cleaner while Joey tried to find a way to leap high enough to grab the intruder.

Joey has not quite come to terms with the vacuum cleaner.  I think it’s a bit loud and obnoxious for his taste.  So, when I came tearing up, plugged in the machine and turned it on, Joey decided to retreat to a safe distance.  I sucked the cockroach up in the long extension to the vacuum, let it run long enough to convince myself that the roach had not survived, then turned the vacuum off and collapsed on the couch to try to return my breathing to a normal  pattern.

Joey is evidently not completely conversant in how vacuum cleaners deal with cockroaches.  He first went back to the last place he’d seen the bug and did a bit of reconnoitering, but was rather puzzled by the fact that the bug was nowhere to be seen.

Then, he approached the vacuum cleaner and sniffed it over thoroughly, looked from the vacuum to the last known location of the bug and back, and walked away shaking his head.

At times like that, I wish I could have the same level of enthusiasm for playing with cockroaches as cats do. . .  but it’ll never happen.

I hope you’ve never been a defendant or plaintiff in a courtroom because that would mean that there was some trouble in your life.  But, if you have had that experience, you may know how stupidity in the court happens.

I’ve been on one jury - no stupidity, just a civil suit that only took a day.  And, the verdict was very obvious to all.  The scary thing was a couple of the jurors were older women, and they evidently sit on juries as a hobbie.  They wanted everyone’s name because they kept a scrapbook on all their juries.  Hmmm….

I saw this in a magazine (from JCR, the magazine of the National Court Reporters Association) the other day and it reminded me of courtroom silliness:

Lawyer:  Do you know when that meeting occurred?
Witness:  The March 9 meeting?
Lawyer:  Yes
Witness:  March 9

I think things like that happen when the attorney isn’t very prepared for a particular witness.  I think it’s the same reason that people say “Ummm” before answering a question, because they’re giving themselves time to think. 

And, evidently while they’re thinking of the next juicy question to ask, their ability to recognize what they’re currently saying is significantly reduced.

I was a witness in a trial once.  It was a ridiculous civil suit that should never have gotten into a courtroom.  But, it did, and after being warned by the defendant’s attorney that it would happen, I was served a subpoena - more than once, actually, because the trial date got moved around.

Unless you try to hide from process servers, you’ll find them rather nice and actually apologetic.  Explaining that I was expecting the subpoena didn’t seem to make them feel any better.

Here was my stupid question.  The attorney seemed to be very busy looking at some papers he was holding.  I had just explained that I heard a fight, went outside to see what was happening, then went back inside to call the police.  And, the lawyer asked:

“And, how long were you there?”

And, I said, “Ummm, well, I guess until I left”.

Then, the attorney asked, “Oh, so you didn’t go back outside?”  Which I think would have been the appropriate question in the first place.

Don’t you?

The Olympics are back again.  I watched most of the Opening Ceremony.  It was an amazing thing.  The drummers, for example.  How you can get all those people to do the same thing at EXACTLY the same time is mind boggling.

I gave up watching after some of the teams entered the venue.  As usual, I was amazed by all the countries I’ve never heard of.  But, then, I was curious about the lighting of the torch.  I’m a night owl, so I tuned in toward the end of the broadcast and had a chance to see the torch ceremony.

I’m not a big sports fan, but there is something about the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics that touches me.  It’s more about so much of the world coming together - if only we could truly understand each other and quit fighting, that would be my dream, Olympic or otherwise.

So, the lighting of the torch is always a touching scene for me.  If you didn’t get a chance to see it, here’s how it went.  There were 8 torch bearers.  The last one was a famous Chinese athlete.  After lighting his torch, he was elevated on some kind of a wire to the height of the “membrane” at the very top of the stadium, and if you saw any of the Ceremony, you heard about that.

Once he reached the top, the wire changed the angle at which he was suspended, and he “ran” all the way around the stadium.  As he passed by, photos of the travels of the torch from Greece were projected on the membrane.

How he had the strength to “run” in place while hanging on a wire is beyond me.  It was quite something.  Then, the torch had appeared as if by magic at the top of the stadium, and the lighting of the flame gave me a familiar lump in my throat.

And, the men’s gymnastic team got a Bronze medal!  How cool.

And, Sarah Brightman was there.  I am in awe of her voice, but I can’t help thinking that she always looks like she’s high on drugs.

One of the people I watched the early part of the Ceremony with (who will remain nameless) complained, “I can’t understand a word she’s saying!”

Guess that’s what happens when Sarah sings in Chinese…   

Yes, it’s another spam rant.  If it weren’t for my virus software, PC-cillin, I’d be a goner.  Or, at least I’d probably have several viruses running around my computer by now.

The one that came close?  CNN.  Or at least someone trying to be them.  I’ve never gotten a spam saying they were CNN, so I wasn’t really thinking about danger.  The email looked pretty good.  It was laid out well, had a CNN logo and listed the top 10 stories and videos from the famous news outlet.  One of the videos sounded interesting, so I actually clicked on the link.

There have been times when PC-cillin has warned me that a site might be a phishing site.  This time was different.  Rather than displaying the web page, a message came up telling me that PC-cillin would not allow me to display the site.  If I really wanted to see it, I’d have to change the settings in the PC-cillin software.

This made me wonder if perhaps something might be amiss!  And, of course when I checked the link I was being sent to, it had nothing to do with news.  More something about toys, which I’ll bet aren’t for the 3-6 age group.  Whew, just snuck out of that one!

I’ve also noticed that some of the traditional spammers are getting lazy.  The other day I got an email, and rather than the long, heart-wrenching story this type of mail usually contains, all it said was:

• Hello, I am Mr Name Deleted, the an external auditor of a bank in Singapore.I have a proposal  to discuss about a certain Dormant Investment Account of a deceased customer.Please contact me  through my email below if you are interested to know more about this transaction.It will be beneficial to all parties concerned.  Yours Faithfully,

If these fools insist on clogging up my email system, you’d think they’d at least take the time to write a good story.

Then, I got a junk email from someone named “Speece Poullion”.  I looked that up on the Internet just for fun.  As far as I can tell, both those names are actually last names.  Must have been that the sender thought the name rolled off the tongue.  On the other hand, the email address domain was from Denmark.  Maybe that’s a real name over there.

I just can’t believe that people are still falling for these stupid tricks.  I can only assume they are, because the spammers must get some result or they’d probably stop.

On the other hand, consider this famous definition of insanity:

• Doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting a different result.

So, maybe spammers aren’t really bad people — they’re just insane.

I really don’t know why they bother putting a Control key on computer keyboards.  Have you ever noticed that it doesn’t help a bit?  I would like to feel like I’m in control of my computer, but I can’t really say that’s true.

I know I usually have too many windows open.  But, why is it that I can be working on Word, for example, and all of a sudden an Internet window will appear at the front of the screen?  Is my computer trying to tell me something?  Is it tired of word processing and would prefer to do some surfing for a while?

Then, there’s the backup program for my external drive.  Sometimes, when I open it, all that appears is a popup window announcing its appearance.  It never actually does anything.  So, I open the Task Manager to stop the process, but the Manager tells me that it really isn’t running.  So, why is it sitting there on the screen?  I don’t know.

My sister tells me that when she shuts down her laptop, she gets a popup screen saying that Outlook is closing and if she turns off the computer, she’ll lose all her messages.  After some period of time, on top of that popup, another one appears saying that Outlook is not responding and must be shut down.  Why can’t it make up its mind?  Should she close Outlook or not??

I sometimes think back to the good old days - and I know I’m dating myself here - but, those were the days when all you had on the PC was an operating system, and it wouldn’t do anything unless you wrote some code.  Yes, they were ugly and didn’t do a whole lot, but I really felt like I was in control!

I’m looking forward to the time when computers will do what you want them to do, not what you tell them to do.  Should solve all these control issues.

I rarely get sick, and I thank heaven for that.  For one thing, I don’t have time, and for another thing, I’m a terrible sick person.  The best thing anyone can do for me is to go away until I emerge from the extreme grumpiness illness causes me.

So, I was appalled last week when I seemed to have come down with the flu.  I went to see a movie over the weekend before last - saw Hancock, which was a good flick.  The person I went with got sick a day later, but I didn’t think anything of it.

Then, I got sick.  What a pain.  I figure some idiot in the movie theater should have stayed home rather than spreading germs around!

I looked in the cabinet for medicine to treat flu-type symptoms and found it - it had expired sometime in 2004.

However, I persevered and recovered.  If you need to talk to me, it’s safe now.

No, this is not a patriotic post.  Although, I guess I am pretty patriotic.  Actually, I’m talking about the cable network called USA.  They advertise that they’re the channel for characters, and they’ve got that right! 

But, the real reason I’m thankful for the USA channel is because they brighten up summer TV.  I don’t watch a lot of television, but I do enjoy some relatively mindless entertainment after a hard day at the computer.  And on the phone. 

Summer used to be useless as far as television was concerned.  If you had a good memory, you’d go nuts with reruns.  But, on Monday, two of my favorite shows came back for their short runs.

If you haven’t seen The Closer, you might want to take a look.  The lead is a woman, but it’s not a chick show.  It’s got good story lines and great acting.  There’s only one thing I would change. 

In the show, the lead character moved from somewhere in the South to somewhere on the West Coast, I think.  If the actress playing the lead, whose name I naturally don’t know, could do a good Southern accent, that would be fine.  However, she can’t.  If you haven’t heard a real Southern accent lately, rest assured what you hear on The Closer isn’t getting you any closer to hearing one. 

If I ruled the world, I would have written the story with the lead moving from somewhere like Ohio to the West Coast.  Then, the actress could just use her real voice.

The second show on USA Monday is another favorite, Saving Grace.  Some people I know won’t watch that show because they say that Holly Hunter (I think I got that one right) is just too raw.  My reply?  Well, that’s the whole idea.  If Grace didn’t have a bunch of problems, what would be the point in saving her? 

I also like to watch it because Hunter is not a spring chicken, and I’m fascinated by her physique.  How she has developed all those muscles in that little tiny body is a wonder.

And, then, there’s Earl.  Great guy.  Wish I had someone like him hanging around me, although I’m glad I don’t need one.  That probably sounds very strange, but you have to catch up with the show to understand.

If nothing else, just watch the first few minutes through the part where they play the theme song.  It’ll make you wanna get up and move - or maybe slither . . .

I hope you enjoyed the 4th of July weekend.  I had a great day.  Hot dogs for dinner.  As silly as that sounds, I love hot dogs and don’t eat them often.  But a grilled hot dog with all the trimmings and pasta salad, excellent tomatoes and so forth. . .   Delightful.

Then, there were the fireworks.  For the past couple years, I could watch them from my driveway.  But, it is amazing how fast trees grow, and I was afraid our view would be blocked, so we walked down to the corner to make sure we had a clear view.

As usual, we were early and the fireworks were late.  So, we sat in those foldup camp chairs and watched the activity.  We were sitting at the edge of a neighborhood street, and we complained about the cars going too fast trying to get even closer to the fireworks display.  But, then there was no light from the cars, and no streetlights.  But, lots of people joining us in the street. 

It was fascinating watching the shimmery figures of people in the dark.  They seemed to suddenly appear from nowhere, flickered in the dark as they walked along - then either disappeared as magically as they had appeared, or planted themselves in what they thought was the best viewing position.

Then, the fireworks started.  We were right - our seats were perfect.  We watched in awe as shapes and streaks exploded in the sky.  Sometimes I jumped when the explosion of light was particularly loud.  I’m glad that there were a lot of my favorites - the ones that end up looking like a brilliant weeping willow tree, curving out of the sky and sparkling toward the ground.

The finale filled the sky with light, sound, and a regal salute to our freedom.  I’ve seen fireworks many times, but each time is different.  And, each time I’m grateful for America, and for the grand serendipity that resulted in my being born here.

I’ve decided to celebrate Joey the cat’s birthday on the 4th of July.  I’m not sure exactly when he was born since I got him from a shelter.  But, based on estimates of his age, he was born sometime around July, so I figure the 4th is a good day to celebrate.

He’s a year old now, and very much settled in.  One of the unique things about him is that he doesn’t really have a voice.  It’s rather disconcerting in a way because if he gets locked in somewhere, you’d never know it.  So, I’m very careful to check any room before I close the door.

When he does talk, it doesn’t come out as the usual Meow.  The closest I can come to describing it is Rrrreep!   But, it doesn’t seem to concern him.  Actually, you’d really never know he was abandoned; doesn’t seem to have any lingering paranoia.

I do know that he’s very smart.  I know, everyone says that about their pet.  And, for all you cat haters out there, you’re probably thinking, “Ha!”  But he is smart, and here’s how I know.  I taught him a trick.

Really, it was rather amazing.  The only other cats I’ve ever known well were not really open to being taught anything.  After a string of suggested cures (a spray water bottle, hissing, pleading and upside-down mouse traps), I finally got them to stay off the kitchen counters.  At least while I was in the room.

But, Joey is different.  His favorite toy is a long wire with a piece of leather on the end.  One day, I was sitting on the couch when he wanted to play, so I said, “Go get your wire, Joey!” 

The amazing thing was that he started running around like a dog when you’re teaching it a new trick.  You know how it goes - the dog perks up his ears and jumps around; he knows you want him to do something, he just doesn’t know what.  So, that got me to wondering if perhaps Joey could learn how to fetch his wire.

It took some time.  Joey views things very literally.  First he learned to fetch the wire and bring it back to me in the living room.  Then, for a while, he’d get the wire and return to his spot in the living room, even if I was in the kitchen.

But, now he’s got it down pretty good.  I throw the wire across the room and he runs to get it and brings it back, no matter where I am.  Just like when I’m playing with an  enthusiastic  dog, I get tired/bored with the game long before he does.  The last time I showed off his trick, my friend wanted me to do it again.  I think he assumed that the first time was just a fluke.

The vet says that Joey is a mutt, but he must have some Bengal cat in his history somewhere because his markings are exactly like a Bengal.  I’m glad Joey has such a good disposition, though.  One of the funniest cat videos I’ve ever seen was of a Bengal kitten.  I’m really glad I didn’t end up with this darling.  You cat people will love it!

It’s not very often that the passing of famous people makes an impression on me.  I’ve never really understood why we get so involved with famous people.  I agree with the guy (whose name I forget) from Saturday Night Live who said something to the effect of:  If you think you want to be rich and famous, try rich first.

I can’t imagine having photographers chasing me around 24/7.  I don’t understand how everyday people can get so involved with famous people that they know every little thing about them.  Guess it started with the Beatles in my life.  Watching those crowds of kids - mostly girls of course - screaming and crying over four other kids from England. . .   it was a puzzlement.

But, that’s not the topic for this Wednesday.  As you probably know, George Carlin passed away recently.  His passing did have an impact on me.  Carlin was controversial to some, but I was always fascinated by the way he looked at things.

I enjoyed his outlook on life and his ability to look at the most common situations and find the unusual or absurd angle on them.  Here are some Carlin gems:

• By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth.
• Dusting is a good example of the futility of trying to put things right. As soon as you dust, the fact of your next dusting has already been established.
• Electricity is really just organized lightning.
• Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?
• I recently went to a new doctor and noticed he was located in something called the Professional Building. I felt better right away.
• I think people should be allowed to do anything they want. We haven’t tried that for a while. Maybe this time it’ll work.
• I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman, “Where’s the self-help section?” She said if she told me, it would defeat the purpose.
• I’m not concerned about all hell breaking loose, but that a PART of hell will break loose… it’ll be much harder to detect.
• Just cause you got the monkey off your back doesn’t mean the circus has left town.
• Not only do I not know what’s going on, I wouldn’t know what to do about it if I did.
• People who say they don’t care what people think are usually desperate to have people think they don’t care what people think.

And, I could go on.  But, if you haven’t heard a Carlinism lately, those quotes should remind you whether you liked the man’s humor or not.  And, here’s the most appropriate George Carlin quote to end this whimsy:

Always do whatever’s next.

Safe Journey, Mr. Carlin