I'm taking the bus home right now. I'm sitting sideways on the bus—three seats are facing three seats on the other side. The girl sitting next to me has been talking to the guy across from her. I figured that it would be nice for me to ask the guy if he wanted to trade seats with me so that he could sit next to her, especially because it would be too loud to talk on the freeway, once we got on it. We were at the last stop before the freeway, and I was going to offer the guy to trade seats with me, but the girl never stopped talking and gossiping. I never did get to offering, and I think I have done this guy a favor because of it.
I handed out candy at my dad's work today. Every year, on the Saturday before Halloween, the businesses in the Greenwood area around his store participate in a trick-or-treating thing, and my dad hires me to give out candy for his store.
Most kids are too young to know to say thank you. Most of them I'm sure don't even know what's going on. (That doesn't mean they have to stare at you after you give them candy, though.) I was surprised by how many kids were saying thank you today. Several of them really seemed to be excited to be trick-or-treating, and I think this was a great thing. There was one group of girls, slightly older than the rest, each dressed up to give her a pallid look, and they weren't smiling at all, and they hardly said thank you. Were they in this just for the candy? It didn't even look like they enjoyed being together.
The worst part is when you give a kid candy, he turns around, and the mom or dad says, "What do you say?" The expected answer, from the kid to me, is "Thank you," but it doesn't always come to that. Often, the kid will just stand there, staring awkwardly, until the parent thanks me. Actually, what's worse than that is when the kid does say thank you, but the parent says, as they're leaving, "DID YOU SAY THANK YOU?" It's too bad that the parents don't trust their children. Did they harass them like this at every store?
There was one little girl who came in the store right as the event was ending at three. I gave her a Rocky Road candy and wished her a happy Halloween. Then, her mom asked her, "What do you say?" Instead of giving thanks, though, the girl said, "I'm allergic to nuts." So I had to take the Rocky Road out of her hand (it has cashews!) and replaced it with a Laffy Taffy.
I'm using Microsoft Office Word 2007 to type something for my composition class:
Uh oh! It says there's an error. It says to change "seven" to "7." Okay.
Now what? It wants me to change it back to "seven." Word says to do this because I should spell out any number less than 10. So I make the change, and it says to change back to 7. (Augh! I could do this for hours!) I think the problem it's having is that it thinks that "seven died" is a part of the preceding list, and it's trying to make my list consistent somehow.
If you leave Comcast's DVR paused for too long, a screen saver pops up to protect the TV from burn-in.
Is this an oversight? It's an HD cable box, presumably designed for widescreen TVs—it's weird that the screen saver fills only the middle 4:3 area of the TV. Isn't the rest of the screen at risk of burn-in? I hope that Comcast will resolve this issue with their next update.
Update (Oct. 8): Comcast has e-mailed me and is taking steps to resolve this matter. Update (Jan. 24, 2009): I suppose the issue is still being investigated. Update (Dec. 15, 2009): The problem is still persisting, but I am confident that Comcast is hard at work with an upgrade to fix it. Update (Aug. 29, 2010): I just noticed that the screen saver has been fixed! It stretches across the whole screen. And now instead of Comcast, it says xfinity, whatever that means…
This year's garbage ghost is up! We did the same thing last year, and we've done it before.
Jesse and I made the ghost yesterday. We used two garbage bags this year, taping them together to make a much larger ghost. We stuffed the head with plastic shopping bags, using just a little paper to cover the Safeway logo so that it wouldn't show through. Jesse drew the face on with a Sharpie. I am impressed by how generic he drew the face. I was afraid he might draw a stupid-looking half-scary face. The moaning ghost look is very appropriate. We stopped working on the ghost to rescue his cat, who was stuck meowing on his roof.
Hanging the ghost is very tricky. (I want to mention that the fishing line is attached to the top of the ghost's head—it is not tied around the neck.) Jesse plays a lot of sports, so he is a much better thrower than I. He tied the fishing line to a rock and threw it over the street light. Once we got it over, but before we pulled the ghost up, I messed things up. I stepped in a loop of the fishing line and got it tangled around my foot. I don't know what Jesse was thinking, but he cut the line around my leg, and this messed up this hanging.
I could tell that Jesse was getting tired, and when his mom asked if he wanted to go with her to pick up his sister, he went with her. Patrick and Jeanina had come outside to watch, but I realized that none of the three of us would have an easy time throwing a rock over the light in just the right place. I got out my Foxtail, tied the string to the tail, and flung it up and over the light. Unfortunately, I forgot to have someone hold onto the other end of the string (not attached to the ghost), and it got pulled up by the Foxtail's weight, so I had to do it again—I got it on the third try. I pulled the ghost up and anchored the string to the bushes underneath.
The ghost is really cool! With breezes, it spins slowly around, and its tail floats behind it.
It seems like the ghost is alive (or undead, at least), looking around the cul-de-sac. I hope this ghost stays up through Halloween.
