Let me back up a little to give full idiocracy props where they’re due. Yesterday I received a call from my son’s school while I was at work in which they informed me that he had a 30 second seizure and a 101+ fever. He was perfectly fine when I sent him off to school that morning just a few hours prior to the phone call. He occasionally experiences the break through seizures, so that wasn’t my concern, the concern was the mysterious and sudden fever.

I was assured he seemed to be okay, but policy was that they send students home when they exhibit a temperature that’s over 101 (good policy). I finished what I was working on (hey, they said he seemed okay…) and then rushed double time to the school get my son.

Once I got there I was greeted by my now irked ‘child’ who was miffed that he had to go home (It’s no joy for me either…). He kept protesting, “I’m fine!” to which I replied, “Well let’s see what’s going on.”

Jonathon (my son) “Nothing’s going on, I’m fine.”
Me: “Then why do you have a fever?”
Him: “I don’t know, I’m fine… (COUGH COUGH) …(pause)… (COUGH)… okay, maybe a little sick, but I’m fine.”
Me: ” :/ ” <- I did the face

I get him home and run a continuous sugar water drip through his g-tube (stomach tube that he had put in several years for extra nutrition, water and medication). I cooled him off with damp cloth and had the air circulate and then monitored his temperature through the evening. It went up… it went down. It spiked up… it spiked down. I continued the water through the night and figured I’d see how he did in the morning. The coughing had ceased and there was nothing indicating he was in pain or experiencing discomfort any where else.

Now Jonathon had just recently gotten over a cold, and a few days prior to the onset of the fever I had noticed his nose was a little congested and he had sneezing fits, his eyes were also red and itchy. I dismissed the symptoms as a possible allergy to some flowers that were dying and wondering if perhaps pollen was getting in the air due to the decay. I tossed the flowers (which I needed to do any way) and then saw his symptoms subsided. No further thought or action required although I bought allergy meds to be on the safe side.

Come morning I had expected to greet a normal and healthy Jonathon when I went in to wake him up, instead, I took his temperature and it was spiked back up again despite my best efforts of continuing hydration, fans, sleeping with only a thin sheet, etc.

I alerted work and his school that we’d be staying home so I can talk to his doctor and see what further I can do.

Shortly after I left a message with his school, I received an email that informed me, “Oh okay, I don’t want to alarm you but whooping cough has been going around and with Jonathon’s fever and symptoms, I thought you should know.”

Seriously? They couldn’t think to tell me that when I went to pick him up almost 24 hours prior to that? I now know it was time critical information because I learned that immunizations for whooping cough go away after a certain amount of time. Although he got his shots early on in life, they need to be given again every ten years. Well that time had expired and since he’s quadriplegic and doesn’t have great lung development, any sort of respiratory infection can land him in the hospital with collapsed lungs in addition to a myriad of other things that can and have gone wrong.

I quickly called the doctor’s office, discovering they weren’t open yet and then went online to arm myself with information on the possible infliction and these words caught my attention: “Oxygen tent”, “Seizures”, “Hospitalization”, “Passing out from not being able to breathe”, “DEATH”!!!

“Death?!?!” I kept calling the doctor’s office until they finally answered at 8:30 and passed on the information about his symptoms, his temperature and how I took it (forehead device which I know isn’t always accurate), and what measures I had taken thus so far. I also passed on the whooping cough information, to which they told me they’d call his doctor and figure out what to do.

If it was whooping cough, it’s highly contagious and the best shot at defeating it is to start antibiotics early on. Once you’ve shown signs of having it, you’ve probably already had it for two weeks (spreading it, or at least that’s what I had read on one site). TO THE PHARMACY, STAT!

An hour later after not hearing anything back, I did a follow up call and was informed that they were going to order him antibiotics and it should be ready in an hour or so and to check with the pharmacy.

I sat perched at my computer for the most part clicking refresh on the Walgreens website all morning to see if it was at least being ordered. While doing this, I figured that since I had today off, I might as well try to do a follow up about a procedure that he needed done in which we were waiting on his doctor to fax orders to a specialist so that we could set it up. I was previously informed that they did send orders, and yet nothing had been set up yet.

In addition to trying to stay on top of the medication, we were trying to call the specialists office to see if they truly had the orders and if so, why has nothing been set up? My fiance tried calling for me, only to be met with a constant dropping of the call as soon as he hit the button to speak to a nurse. He had several failed attempts and long waits being stuck in the system; I decided to try it on my phone and I was met with the same fate.

Finally, getting annoyed with this silly phone game, I hopped on the computer and sent them a fax through my browser. Sure enough I get a call back in a matter of minutes and was informed that no such orders were received. There was also still no updates on any medications being ordered or set up through his pharmacy.

I called his doctor’s office again and was told “Well the doctor doesn’t get in until 2PM, so if she hasn’t sent the prescriptions in from home, maybe she’ll do it when she gets in.”

:/

I’ve been in this medical arena long enough where I know what doctors and offices listen to the patient and speak to them like people… and which could not care less. This particular office was the latter. I got a hold of my son’s insurance case worker and let her know what was going on. “The Dr. has not sent in the prescription needed for antibiotics or his anti-seizure medication refill (I tried to get it refilled as well since it was getting close to being out); in addition to this, I was also informed that they did not send the orders for his gtube replacement.” Because his case worker has had better luck speaking with them than I did, I hoped she could step in for me.

I received a message from her informing me, “The specialist can’t do the prescriptions, it has to be done through the doctors office… You need to contact them.”

:/

I sent another message reiterating what I said and broken it down to simplify it further. By now it was 2PM.

I’m not sure if the doctor actually did what she was supposed to as soon as she got into the office or if his caseworker was able to speak to them; all of a sudden I saw that his prescription was in process.

I waited almost an hour and then decided to go down to the pharmacy to make sure everything was going smoothly (I was sick of playing tag and waiting. My fiance didn’t have to go to work just yet, I figured I’d give it a shot.).

I went down there and was informed, “We received the prescription, but the doctor ordered a strength that doesn’t exist and she hasn’t returned our calls to get it clarified and fixed. As for the other prescription, she hasn’t returned our call on that one either.”

The strength/directions were “Take by mouth three times daily through g-tube”

:/

I called the doctor from the store and informed her “The strength you ordered doesn’t exist…” She cut me off abruptly and informed me, “It does, they just don’t know how to do it (irked sigh) I’ll call them… *click*”

Yes, she hung up on me.

Time was running out and I had to get back home so my fiance could get to work. As soon as I got home, three minutes later, I was notified that the prescription was ready. DAMN IT!!!

Prior to moving to Texas, 98% of my experience with the medical community has been positive. In Oregon when my son needed anything, it was done asap and correct. Since moving here, his g-tube failed in November, I tried to get the piece replaced by the medical supply company in the same manner I had been doing for years. The supply company had no idea what I was talking about, in which I did not know this until a week after they had me give the makers phone number and part number after telling me, it will be taken care of. A week after not receiving anything, I was informed they did not know what I was needing.

:/

I was instructed to take him to the ER and they can put in a functioning temporary one and then get the permanent one placed in right after. I took him to the ER, they put in a temporary one and set up a hospitalization where I assumed they’d put in his regular tube. I had to take Jonathon out of school and miss work so they could, come to find out, put in another temporary one until they could get his regular tube.

:/

That tube failed immediately by falling out and I had to get him to the ER since I had to physically hold the tube in so it wouldn’t fall out and close up the hole in skin that went directly into this stomach. They placed yet another one in and gave me the information to set up the real procedure.

I had to wait until the next business day to get a hold of the clinic (most of this took place on the weekend), and then after setting up the appointment and feeling relief, I was told that they don’t take his insurance and couldn’t do it.

I called his insurance provider and they told me I wasn’t listed in his files to discuss anything… the most they could do was give me the names of people in the area that take his insurance. I tried calling his caseworker directly to wonder what the hell was going on, and found out she was on vacation for two weeks.

I took the list of providers and every single one of them told me, “We don’t take your insurance, we can’t help you.” I tried to call his doctor and explain this, asking for suggestions and help and was told to… “Call his insurance provider.”

In the two weeks it took for his caseworker to return, there was ANOTHER ER trip.

Once his caseworker returned, she had a co-worker call me and locate a clinic who takes the insurance and who could get us set up. We sat on the phone in a three way conversation with the clinic and it almost sounded like we’d have an appointment in near the future! As soon as I got my hopes up, the nurse asked, “Has he been seen here before?” Once I told her no, he’d be a new patient “Oh, then I can’t talk to you. You need to call our call center and register for a medical number. Once you complete the registration, they’ll get back to you with a medical number and then you can call me and we can set up an appointment.”

:/

I tried to do that… and the line kept dropping me. On my next free afternoon (my son was rushed to the ER from school… ) once he was fine and we were back home I called and finally got through. I went through the entire song and dance to get things going and then was informed, “He’s already in our system, we’re just waiting on your doctor to fax orders.”

:/

I called the doctors office and… fast forward to today.

The End? I wish.

Does anyone know a decent doctor in the Hurst, Euless, Bedford, Texas area or have access to ordering a Bard button so I can just put the damn thing in him myself?

What was one of the appeals of moving to Texas? This area ranked up there at number 2 nation wide for the best medical community for persons with special needs.

:/

Now that the majority of the day was wasted (at least I now have the meds), I’m going to bop around for a bit and relieve some frustration build up. Feel free to join me. Oh, and so you know, while this was going on I was of course taking care of Jonathon, doing housework, trying out a new Kung Fu Kick Boxing exercising DVD, laundry and breaking into my fiance’s car because he accidentally locked the keys in there. Yeah, I’m awesome and I make it appear effortless.

Current Mood: annoyed

I was only able to capture a little bit of the interaction before he sadly* went away.  Initially when I saw the first post that began the flood of spam, I wrote on there that I hoped it wasn’t posted in attempts to offend and if so, when I got home I’d have to take appropriate measures (you can only do so much via a Blackberry).

–Some Weird Youtube Video He Posted–
I can’t recall what my first comments said- it was basically telling him it was offensive, considered harassment and he will be dealt with properly. I had planned to report him when I got home. After a few minutes I decided I’d rather have fun with him in the meantime:

Comment:
Dawn Ninja-d Masuoka 19 minutes ago
Plus your advances are making me uncomfortable. I have a boyfriend… please stop obsessing with me. I get the love thy neighbor thing, but GEEZ dude, tone it down… aren’t you married?
Comment:
Steve-Caroline Nurse 7 minutes ago
No feelings toward you that way. Not looking for anyone because I am married. No advances toward you at all. But you are lost and I don’t want to see anyone lost for eternity. Including your boyfriend. You and him need Jesus like we all need Him. The Bible says that anyoe that says in his or her heart that there is no God that they are a fool. You see there are no atheist in Hell. When you die with out Christ you do go to Hades. But you cease to be an atheist because your realization that there is a God comes to you like running into brick wall. But at that time it will be to late to do anyting about. You can intellectually try to argue your belief, but no matter what our arguments that doesn’t change the fact that there is a God that we will all answer to one day. I’m not trying to show hate or any advances to you. But take it from somebody who almost turned his back on God. Don’t wait before it’s too late. I will be praying for you and your boyfriend that somehow you will see that Jesus loves you both and He paid the ultimate price for you. Please don’t you guys wait before it’s too late!!
Comment:
Dawn Ninja-d Masuoka few seconds ago
Awww you’re making me blush. No need to say all that just in case your spouse is reading. You want me in your dreamed up eternity. I’m flattered… really. But seriously not interested… especially in a three way with some guy named Jesus no matter how much he loves me. I work with a Jesus, hope it’s not the same guy… I mean he’s nice and all, but my heart belongs to someone else.
Comment:
Steve-Caroline Nurse 5 minutes ago
I want no to end up in Christless Eternity. You or your boyfriend. Your mockery; you have to be careful what you say. There is appointed for us all to come to our deaths and then the judgement. I doubt that you’ll be so flippant. You’ll probably come back with some kin of smart answer. But the fact you don’t know when that appointed day is. Perhaps today, we don’t know when it is. Only God. Maybe you’ll try to make some kind of joke of it. But one day it may be too late.
Comment:
Dawn Ninja-d Masuoka few seconds ago
Aww now I’m feeling embarrassed for you. I understand that YOU believe what you’re saying, but that doesn’t make you any less delusional or mentally ill. I was always taught to be polite to your type- and to talk s l o w l y. It reminds me of the one time I felt obligated to go out with this guy who told me if I didn’t date him, his Lord Zolton from Galaxy 19 would destroy the Universe. Crazy talk, right? Yes, the same thing applies. I do hope you seek help and stop stalking and harassing me. Dude, I’m just not that into you. There’s actually a book you could read that helps explains the signs that would assist in knowing when to give up. I think it would benefit us all if you read that and went away. Or just go away… it matters not to me whether or not you read that particular piece of literature.
Comment:
Steve-Caroline Nurse 0 minutes ago
One day your soul will be required of you. That day you will find out that your decision not to follow God was, and is delusional. One day you will bow the knee.
Comment:
Dawn Ninja-d Masuoka few seconds ago
You’re just full of fundie nuttie goodness aren’t you? In a way your obsession with your ‘God’ is almost adorable in a sick and twisted way, and borders on perverse. Bow all you want, but be careful not to yawn whilst you do so… if you know what I mean… (wink)

I went back and saw that all of MY comments were deleted… and his remained in place.

Dawn Ninja-d Masuoka 10 minutes ago
Oooh- did you delete my comments? It’s okay, I already copy/pasted them into my diary.

And new post :/ <-YouTube Video
Steve-Caroline Nurse Dawn Ninja-d Masuoka Repent the Time is Hand!
17 minutes ago Comment Like
Comment:
Dawn Ninja-d Masuoka 15 minutes ago
Fine. You broke me. I will go out with you. I’m thinking Olive Garden and maybe some bowling? I’d suggest roller-blading but I’m somewhat of a klutz. Just let me know what day works best for you.

–End result… he put a post on his page for people to pray for me. I responded by thanking him kindly, and that it worked- I was converted and I shall now do unto others that which he had done unto me; which was stalk, harass, spam, ignore my requests to cease etc.

He quickly removed and blocked me… but not before I got his phone number and mailing address that he moronically had on his profile for his friends to see. Stupid… stupid man.

*not sad at all

^_^

Current Mood: calm

Pro-Life people tend to crawl under my skin. I don’t want to toss stereo-types out there BUT [here I go doing it anyway] typically they’re the same people who are opposed to sex education and pro-death penalty [murder of an actual person- whereas I believe someone who created a heinous crime should be punished for the remainder of their hopefully long life- not getting out of it via death... there is no creator and post life torture for crimes committed in this one "Oh Middle Eastern Sky Daddy and his Zombie Spawn will judge him and have him spending ALL eternity in the lake of fire being tormented by demons!" ~"Seriously? And you are how old??"].

WHY oh WHY do fundies roam free??? Not to say all pro-life buttinsky’s are Christian Fundamentalists, but most of them are and we all know how I feel about the Christian evangelical assholes who are sticking their noses into  personal affairs.

So yes, I flipped them off which was not what I wanted to, but I lacked time to put a pillow under my shirt as I walked into the clinic only to come out with pillow gone and say, “Much better!” as I wiped my smirking lips. Am I pro-abortion? Not really, however, I’m starting to see the population as cockroaches sometimes and the ignorant kids growing up to be asshole adults- I could really care less at this point. It’s none of my business as long as I’m not the one who’s supporting all those kids and the people who birthed them. I find 2nd and 3rd trimester abortions to be somewhat disturbing [and sad- and even more so for the mother, especially if it has to be done due to illness/disease/complications that could put the mothers life in danger should she go full term] and that should be illegal [unless it's due to illness/etc], but first trimester ones I have absolutely no feelings about one way or the other.

Life doesn’t begin at conception- life exists prior to conception. It’s in the form of the egg and sperm. Every time you jack off for pleasure you’re killing a worlds population of people. Each time you menstruate or take a birth control pill- that’s one less moron who’ll cut you off on the highway or steal your hubcap.

Wow I sound heartless, but seriously- I think it’s a personal, legal decision that can prevent a girl from completely freaking out and finding alternative ways to deal with a pregnancy once all options are presented to her. It’s not like she walks in and they say “Ooooh let me kill your baby!” I went to Planned Parenthood when I was a teenager- obviously I chose life and I don’t recall at any point abortion being a topic they brought up other than “That other option” which they didn’t seem comfortable to talk about and I didn’t ask.

Okay- so that’s my stand on abortion… I believe in free choice. If you choose to have a child even though risks may be involved- then it’s awesome you at least had that CHOICE and you could feel good about your decision when it turned out okay.

I have always felt the best way to go was to make it mandatory that your daughter received birth control shots from puberty until she was 18. Yes you can talk all the crap about loving relationships and save yourself for marriage- but it’s a cruel world. Rape happens. Sex happens and to be frank, a baby is the least of their worries- although it can make a hard situation even more difficult. Sex, even in a loving relationship can lead to serious STD’s, a boy/girl with a low self esteem can wind up promiscuous and possibly suicidal, making poor life decisions that can cause advancing in life more difficult; they can contract diseases that can either kill them, prevent them from having an intimate relationship with others, cause them to be sterile should they wish to have kids later on and/or passing an STD to their partner once they decided to settle down and spend their life with someone.

Why is the focus so much on getting pregnant? A baby isn’t the end of the world [although you can be giving a child a rough start in life- seriously... how many teen parents actually do wind up giving their kid to a loving home? The kids who are adopted... how many actually wind up in a loving home and not bounced around the system and in abusive homes until they turn into one f'ed up adult?] and not having a baby isn’t the end of the world either. There’s a bigger picture out there kiddo’s. Pay attention.

Put down yourself righteous signs and find a better way to convey a message than by shaming people into the decision that YOU want them to make. Hags.

Right after that I saw a truck with Yahweh plastered all over it. Freaking Google. Seriously, before internet use you’d ask the majority of Christians who that was and they had no freaking clue. You’d ask who the god they worshiped was and they would just say “God… he doesn’t have a name…” And then they’d act like to say the name was similar to the characters in the Potter books saying Voldemort.  While they were parked on the corner doing the lazy begging [sitting in their truck as the signs did all the panhandling] I felt like saying “Oh I’m sure your god will provide- maybe if you had a little more faith in your lord it will… but obviously he’s punishing you, isn’t he? Try praying a more and then watch the miracles happen! If it doesn’t happen- then I guess you’re doing it wrong.”

Of course I’d never do that. I was homeless and put in hard times before WITH a special needs child. I know what it means to be down and out. Did I panhandle? No… I worked my ass off and when the paychecks stopped because I lost a permanent residence, I lived in a shelter and then was placed in low income housing until I was able to get myself out there by furthering my education and submitting job applications and going on interviews until my feet bled- never waiting for the perfect job… I took what I could get and when I was getting nothing- I joined 3 different temp services and did that until thankfully one of the jobs turned into full time employment. This was all done WHILE still being a single mother to my two children and still being in and out of hospitals with my son. Did a god provide? No. Good fortune isn’t in the skies- it should be with in yourself and the people around you.

It’s hard to feel sorry for them.

So after I came home, I caught myself teaching my son how to woo the girl of his dreams “Act indifferent, it winds up making them more interested.” I gave him examples and he watched other guys do that on TV right after our conversation and saw how the females were even more drawn to the jerks… and then I realized “Wow, I just taught him how to be a calloused a’hole towards girls. Crap.”

On another flipping off side note: I had a friend today start a conversation where he begins to tell how he met this incredibly beautiful young woman the other day. As he talks about the encounter he mentions that he swears she could be my daughter because she looked just like me- complete with my goofy mannerisms. He even said that he went up to her and asked her if she had a mom who worked at [whatever our company name is this month] and of course she said no. At first I was wondering if he did happen across my daughter [turns out no]- and then I furrowed my brow. Whereas it was almost a compliment, it did wind up feeling very backhanded. My daughter though, really? I guess it was forgiven because he knows I had my daughter at a very young age, but I miss the days when people would mistaken young girls who looked like me as my sister- such as the other week when an old Middle School classmate of my daughter was staring at me at the store because I apparently look just like Ash and she asked if I happened to be her sister.

To the old classmate of my daughter I give hugs. To the other… he gets the bird!

This is not the game you are looking for

I’m not very fond of these two day weekends. The winter holidays spoiled me with 3 day weekends along with my sons school enabling the lengthy time spent away from the grindstone. The downside of the latter is that I use up all my PTO, but the additional day of sanity is worth it. — I just hope we don’t get sick!

Yesterday was spent impatiently fidgeting on the sofa sounding child like as I asked my son, “Can I play Batman Arkham Asylum yet?”
“No– be patient”
“But I am patient!”
“You aren’t.”
“That’s because I want to plaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!”

During my ‘time out’, I had a chance to think of the next game I wanted to get:

I wound up going to the neighborhood Gamestop to pick up a copy of DOA 4. Since finally getting an Xbox 360, I wanted to find a fun fighting game that would allow me to kick the butt of friends around the area and DOA has proven to be a decent game with fluid movement and breathtaking atmosphere [no- not the DOA girls]. I was so excited to find that it was reduced to the low price of 12.99, picked up, ran home and I practically tore it out of the case when I discovered they put a DOA Xtreme 2 disk instead of DOA 4. For those unfamiliar with the game, the Xtreme versions are when they take the DOA girls, put them in skimpy bikini’s and place them on a beach volley ball court. :-\ No wonder the girl who took my purchase looked at me funny.

Back into the car- I rushed to the store to find out that the person who brought in the game for resale had brought in the wrong disk. DOA 4 did not exist there. I traded it up for a Soul Caliber IV and as the guy was ringing me up, I asked, “Now this isn’t going to be the Soul Caliber bikini version… is it?”
“Noooo- I don’t think they’d make a game with Yoda in a bikini”
“Good, I also think that might be illegal.”
I did bring home the right game, however, due to the visual of Yoda in a bikini I can’t bring myself to play it yet.

Jonathon had more game testing to do [the wonderful part of the new consoles is the ability to download demo games and even some full version games for free]- It was like his birthday all over again, only better… in comparison to this past one at least.

While he was doing that, I logged onto to FSTDT for my daily dose of fundie stupidity. One in particular led me to a religious thread on Gamefaqs [why they have a religious section on Gamefaqs is unknown to me].  I’m flipping through it and I haven’t really been a voyeur in forums for religion in years, especially after I became a non-theist. Previously, although I wasn’t a theist or Christian etc., I did spend my times on forums about Buddhism, Wicca, Paganism and La Vey Satanism. That of course was many many years ago while I was still trying to educate myself on the various religions- why people believed certain ways and in a way I was still deprogramming myself from the cult like upbringing I had from being raised “non-denominational” evangelical raptard Christian.

Back to the story at hand… [sorry for trailing off]. I came across a thread inquiring if any Christians believed in evolution. Most non-f*cktard Christians actually do believe their deity did have a hand in evolution and see the evidence towards that theory and their idea of a creator do go hand in hand. On this particular thread it was created by a YEC [Young Earth Creationist] and they ignorantly bashed the concept of evolution at every turn, sounding like a complete idiot towards every atheist, agnostic, Christian and possibly other [I assume some people were probably Hindu and Buddhist as well, but it wasn't stated].

Example of stupidity from the original poster:
Calling atheism a religion. Fact: Atheism is as much as a religion as not collecting stamps is a hobby. An atheist is quite simply one who does not believe in a god, any god.  He kept insisting that ALL atheists followed a dogma, that we all believed the same thing, that we’re a ‘type’– and many people constantly tried to correct, “The ONLY thing that atheists have in common is their LACK OF BELIEF in a deity.” Period.

Page after page I read feeling mesmerized by the ignorance and watching as it went from him discussing evolution to attacking atheism, going off topic even after everyone tried to get him to stay the course. He’d scoff at the debaters ‘lack of evidence’ despite them giving examples and sources. His stupidity became hypnotic.

One of the things that had me shaking my head and almost drawing a comic for was this:

The moron’s argument was that the book he’s citing is 2000 years old!! It has to be true!!! It’s two freaking thousand years old!!! [let's forget about all the lost literature due to burnings and destruction of civilizations over the course of those 2000 years-- What? They didn't run it through a printing press and make copies? Sucks to be them!

So after he's laughing at everyone for not believing in a TWO THOUSAND year old fable, he's presented with a poll and other resources dating back about 10 years and dismisses it, "Seriously that's from 1997- that's outdated!" :-\

It lead to the other clichés:
Moron: "HA HA HA I can't believe you guys believe that something happened out of nothing. You guys are idiots!" [paraphrasing]
Poster: “Okay then, who created the creator?”
Moron: “I can’t believe how stupid you are. No one created the creator. It’s too complex for us to understand.”
Poster: “So basically he just happened out of nothing… and you just believe that.”
Moron: “Well yeah.. the bible is 2000 YEARS OLD and it says so right in there!”

After that I finally got to play the game for about an hour, then I watched horrified as I stumbled across “Toddlers and Tiaras aka Strippers in Training” and then finished off my evening on Netflix with Penn and Tellers “Bull Shit”.

Bull Shit is full of profanity and gratuitous nudity- which I’m not a big fan of either, and although most of the things he was debunking, I already knew– it’s a decent watch. I think the only episode I saw that seemed sloppy and poorly executed was the one from Season 6 about ‘The Good Old Days”.

So that’s my weekend up until now. Currently I’m sitting on the sofa, fidgeting and asking Jonathon, “When can I play?”
“Be patient.”
“I am being patient!”
“Then stop asking…”
“But I want to play noooooooooooooooow!”

Why am I posting this? Yet another xtian evangelical fundie annoyance called ‘Prayer Warriors’- the most passive aggressive thing I had ever read. “Let’s drop to our knees and pray to our malevolent sky god to have what ever the hell is going to happen and then give him credit for it.” If the person dies than it’s the will of the faux deity. If they get better than the prayers are answered. It’s cowards way of saying “Heads we win, tails we win- SEE IT WORKS!”

I believe that praying or meditating for the person helps prep the person/people for the outcome whatever it may be, if they use it for that purpose. It’s way to give comfort to those you love– but for f’s sake people, GROW UP!

**I reserve the right to express my views on my privately funded site and I chose, for the most part, to leave them off of social networks. If you don’t like it, go away.

Current Mood: annoyed

For all the idiots out there, this is for you.

1. Yay and Yeah are NOT the same thing. Yeah is used as a replacement for “yes”, “sure”, “okay”. Yay on the other hand means an expression of joy and jubilation–”YAY! The moron finally learned how to write!! Woo hoo!! [and it is woo hoo... not 'who hoo']

2. Lose is to not win and loose is what causes your pants to fall down when you’re not wearing a belt. To say, “You loose sucka!” makes you a complete douche. <-note how I spell douche. It’s not “dushe”, “duche” or any other variable. It is more proper to use the word ‘bag’ after ‘douche’ but sometimes they’re just not worth the extra letters.

3. Ditto means “the same”. If someone writes something you agree with and you’ve nothing more to add, you respond with “Ditto”. It is not “Diddo” Diddo is not a freaking word. Replace one of the d’s with an ‘l’ and that’s what you look like when you type “Diddo!”

4. Chic– this is pronounced “sheek”. It is not ‘chick’. There is no ‘k’ at the end. If you put a ‘k’ at the end you are now referring to the slang for female or a baby chicken and it no longer refers to something stylish, which means you have now become the opposite of ‘chic’.

5. Ciao. It’s another language, if you’re going to use it then learn to spell it. “Chow” is commonly used to refer to food or a type of food.

6. Whoa [hold on, stop] not woa. If you are a Brit, I suppose they spell it ‘woah’, however, the people who use ‘woa’ or ‘woah’ are not British, not sophisticated– they are borderline number 2′s on my list.

Of course we can go over the ‘they’re/there/their’ and ‘your/you’re’ annoyances but it’s been covered so many times and very few people have been able to grasp the difference. I can only ‘face palm’ and shake my head at them.

]]> http://dawnmasuoka.com/2010/02/another-lesson-in-the-english-language/feed/ 0 http://dawnmasuoka.com/2010/02/more-evidence-to-the-dumbing-down-of-society/ http://dawnmasuoka.com/2010/02/more-evidence-to-the-dumbing-down-of-society/#comments Mon, 01 Feb 2010 18:37:34 +0000 Dawn Masuoka http://dawnmasuoka.com/?p=4689 I remember the first experience I had with people judging me for my spelling and grammatical skills online. It was a dark and stormy night when I decided to enter my first ‘chat room’ on Yahoo.

After merely writing out a few greetings and introductions, I was called a ‘pompous asshole’, an elitist and a snob.

Why was I referred to in such a way? Was I mean? Did I make fun of people? Quite the contrary– I merely punctuated appropriately and corrected any misspellings during my interactions with the lot. Apparently if you capitalize “I” it means you’re a jackass.

To all you haters out there- IN YOUR FACE! [Oh yeah baby, I did ALL CAPS!]

The following was posted on Facebook by a fellow anal typist/texter:

Students failing because of Twitter, texting
By Susanna Kelley, THE CANADIAN PRESS

(THE ASSOCIATED PRESS/Damian Dovarganes, File)
TORONTO – Little or no grammar teaching, cellphone texting, social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, all are being blamed for an increasingly unacceptable number of post-secondary students who can’t write properly.

For years there’s been a flood of anecdotal complaints from professors about what they say is the wretched state of English grammar coming from some of their students.

Now there seems to be some solid evidence.

Ontario’s Waterloo University is one of the few post-secondary institutions in Canada to require the students they accept to pass an exam testing their English language skills.

Almost a third of those students are failing.

“Thirty per cent of students who are admitted are not able to pass at a minimum level,” says Ann Barrett, managing director of the English language proficiency exam at Waterloo University.

“We would certainly like it to be a lot lower.”

Barrett says the failure rate has jumped five percentage points in the past few years, up to 30 per cent from 25 per cent.

“What has happened in high school that they cannot pass our simple test of written English, at a minimum?” she asks.

Even those with good marks out of Grade 12, so-called elite students, “still can’t pass our simple test,” she says.

Poor grammar is the major reason students fail, says Barrett.

“If a student has problems with articles, prepositions, verb tenses, that’s a problem.”

Some students in public schools are no longer being taught grammar, she believes.

“Are they (really) preparing students for university studies?”

At Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, one in 10 new students are not qualified to take the mandatory writing courses required for graduation.

That 10 per cent must take so-called “foundational” writing courses first.

Simon Fraser is reviewing its entrance requirements for English language.

“There has been this general sense in the last two or three years that we are finding more students are struggling in terms of language proficiency,” says Rummana Khan Hemani, the university’s director of academic advising.

Emoticons, happy faces, sad faces, cuz, are just some of the writing horrors being handed in, say professors and administrators at Simon Fraser.

“Little happy faces … or a sad face … little abbreviations,” show up even in letters of academic appeal, says Khan Hemani.

“Instead of ‘because’, it’s ‘cuz’. That’s one I see fairly frequently,” she says, and these are new in the past five years.

Khan Hemani sends appeal submissions with emoticons in them back to students to be re-written “because a committee will immediately get their backs up when they see that kind of written style.”

Professors are seeing their share of bad grammar in essays as well.

“The words ‘a lot’ have become one word, for everyone, as far as I can tell. ‘Definitely’ is always spelled with an ‘a’ -’definitely’. I don’t know why,” says Paul Budra, an English professor and associate dean of arts and science at Simon Fraser.

“Punctuation errors are huge, and apostrophe errors. Students seem to have absolutely no idea what an apostrophe is for. None. Absolutely none.”

He is floored by some of what he sees.

“I get their essays and I go ‘You obviously don’t know what a sentence fragment is. You think commas are sort of like parmesan cheese that you sprinkle on your words’,” said Budra.

Then he’s reduced to teaching basic grammar to them himself.

He says this has been going on now for the 20 years he’s taught college and university in B.C. and Ontario-only the mistakes have changed.

He too blames poor – or no – grammar instruction in lower schools.

“When I went to high school in the ’70s I was never taught grammar in English. I learned grammar from Latin classes.”

Budra was taught to read and write using whole language rather than phonetics – not a good way to go in his books.

“We haven’t taught grammar for 30-40 years…(and it) hasn’t worked.”

“It’s not that hard to teach basic grammar,” he says.

Ontario’s Ministry of Education says grammar is a part of both its elementary and high school curriculum.

Cellphone texting and social networking on Internet sites are degrading writing skills, say even experts in the field.

“I think it has,” says Joel Postman, author of “SocialCorp: Social Media Goes Corporate,” who has taught Fortune 500 companies how to use social networking.

The Internet norm of ignoring punctuation and capitalization as well as using emoticons may be acceptable in an email to friends and family, but it can have a deadly effect on one’s career if used at work.

“It would say to me … ‘well, this person doesn’t think very clearly, and they’re not very good at analyzing complex subjects, and they’re not very good at expressing themselves, or at worse, they can’t spell, they can’t punctuate,’ ” he says.

“These folks are going to short-change themselves, and right or wrong, they’re looked down upon in traditional corporations,” notes Postman.

But “spelling is getting better because of Spellcheck,” says Margaret Proctor, University of Toronto writing support co-ordinator.

James Turk of the Association of University Teachers takes all the complaints about student literacy with a grain of salt.

“There’s a notion of a golden age in the past that students were wonderful, unlike now. I’m not sure that golden age ever existed,” he says.

“You can go back and read Plato and see Socrates talking about the allegations that this generation isn’t as not as good as previous ones,” he notes.

Because expressing how dumb that was in words just doesn't work.

When stupidity knows no bounds. Instead of a random moron statement, this jackal has a devoted page to shrine his idiocy.

“Ask an atheist if he or she believes in the existence of aliens? If they answer, “no,” then ask them how do they know that? Have they gone to all the other galaxies throughout the universe? The truth is that no atheist can reasonably deny the existence of alien life. To do so would be utter ignorance. If an atheist answers, “yes,” then they have contradicted their claim that there is no God. Is not God an Alien? By every definition of the word, God is an alien, i.e., He is not of this earth. For an atheist to profess believe is alien life, while simultaneously denying the existence of God, is utter hypocrisy and foolishness.”

David J. Stewart, Jesus Christ is Saviour

From the ever so awesome ‘How to Stump an Atheist‘ [love the site devotion and instruction.]

I was about to put a reply on FSTDT but they were pretty much laid out in this response:

Serph-no-Okami

I would say “The chances of life, in some way or form, having evolved on another world are real, considering the fact that we know it is has happened at least once.”

I still would deny the existence of a god since such a concept entails something not just ‘out of this world’ but even ‘out of this universe’, which obviously doesn’t apply to simple alien life.

I decided to go ahead and post the head shaking, facing palming, ‘the stupid… it burns’ f’tard sayings I’ve been reading for awhile now.

One of the examples is from Conservapedia which is *supposed* to be a decent source of information for conservatives.

ie FROM the site, an ‘editor’ no less:

This is a conservative encyclopedia. Its job is to decry liberals and their ideas at every turn. By promulgating the idea that Obama may be a Muslim we are being good conservatives, because it helps to turn people off him.

GloriaL, Conservapedia debate – What is sufficient proof that Obama is a Muslim? 94 Comments [1/10/2010 5:31:03 AM]

Nice eh?