He was grumpy because he didn't want to do his homework, so I've just spent three hours sitting with him making sure he did it. It took him an hour to look up ten words for chrissake, I mean come on - he is not stupid, he's one of the best readers in his class. But if I'm not hovering over his shoulder then he farts around looking through the dictionary at random, apparently hoping for a match between the word his looking for and the word he's reading about.

R's grumpy because she hasn't had enough sleep, from working late Monday and staying over at Ks until late last night.

And I'm grumpy because I missed most of the two star trek episodes, including T'pol behaving like a hot bitch on a fur rug! I picked up this image at Starbase 34 I love women that are intelligent and sexy. That's why I married R, of course :) (BTW, she doesn't read this, so I'm not sucking up)

Speaking of R., she sent me this tonight, which is hilarious and yet highly useful and a damn good idea!

Andy Rooney's Tips for Telemarketers and Junk Mail

Three Little Words That Work !!

(1)The three little words are: "Hold On, Please..."

Saying this, while putting down your phone and walking off (instead of hanging-up immediately) would make each

telemarketing call so much more time-consuming that boiler room sales would grind to a halt.

Then when you eventually hear the phone company's "beep-beep-beep" tone, you know it's time to go back and hang up your handset, which has efficiently completed its task.

These three little words will help eliminate telephone soliciting.

(2) Do you ever get those annoying phone calls with no one on the other end? This is a telemarketing technique where a machine makes phone calls and records the time of day when a person answers the phone.

This technique is used to determine the best time of day for a "real" sales person to call back and get someone at home. What you can do after answering, if you notice there is no one there,

is to immediately start hitting your # button on the phone, 6 or 7 times,

as quickly as possible. This confuses the machine that dialed the call and it kicks your number out of their system.

Since doing this, my phone calls have decreased dramatically.

(3) Another Good Idea:

When you get "ads" enclosed with your phone or utility bill, return these "ads" with your payment. Let the sending companies throw their own junk mail away. When you get those "pre-approved" letters in the mail for everything from credit cards to 2nd mortgages and similar type junk, do not throw away the return envelope.

Most of these come with postage-paid return envelopes, right? It costs them more than the regular 37 cents postage "IF" and when they receive them back. It costs them nothing if you throw them away! The postage was

around 50 cents before the last increase and it is according to

the weight. In that case, why not get rid of some of your other junk mail and put it in these cool little, postage-paid return envelopes. One of Andy Rooney's (60 minutes) ideas. Send an ad for your local chimney cleaner to American Express. Send a pizza coupon to Citibank. If you didn't get anything

else that day, then just send them their blank application back!

If you want to remain anonymous, just make sure your name isn't on anything you send them. You can even send the envelope back empty if you want to

just to keep them guessing! Eventually, the banks and credit card companies will begin getting their own junk back in the mail. Let's let them know what it's like to get lots of junk mail, and best of all they're paying for it...Twice!

Let's help keep our postal service busy since they are saying that e-mail is cutting into their business profits, and that's why they need to increase postage costs again. You get the idea !

If enough people follow these tips, it will work!

Definitely going to try that! R. and J. just went to bed, I need to check on J. in a bit. I got the interview back today from someone who I guess I can't tell you about yet (not that exciting for most of you), and I meant to work on that for the site tonight, until J's homework ambushed me. He didn't get any homework for two weeks, then bang 5 hours worth of homework in one hit! Can't these teachers get some consistency going???

I know I rag on teachers every now and then, and I know it isn't their fault, but from a convenience point of view, its just easiest for me to attack them, ok? so get off my back...

And now for the news: