No, no, no, no, no, no.

"In June 2008, Public Broadcasting Service announced that it intends to soon change the way Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, the beloved children’s television program, is distributed to member stations.

"PBS will cease transmitting the program as part of their daily syndicated lineup beginning in September. Instead, PBS will provide member stations with a single Neighborhood episode on weekends. This unfortunate decision essentially silences the special nurturing voice of Mister Rogers in the daily lives of today’s children.

"Local public television stations, who make the final decisions about which programs to offer and when to air them, can still opt to broadcast Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood each weekday, but they are much less likely to do so without the program being included in PBS’s syndicated feed.
We’re asking PBS to please reconsider their decision, and allow Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, with its timeless expressions of care for children, to remain a part of their syndicated Monday through Friday schedule.

"In the event that PBS stands by their decision, we are urging all PBS member stations to do what it takes to ensure that the lives of children in their neighborhoods can still be enriched each weekday by the gentle, authentic, life-shaping messages of Mister Rogers.

****************************

What crappy timing. I urge everyone to write their local PBS station and keep Mister Rogers' Neighborhood on the air each day instead of scaling it back!!

Please visit the site Save Mister Rogers' Neighborhood for more information!!

I totally agree that this approach to shopping at drugstores can save you money, but holy coupons!! In the time it would take me to do all this in order to get some toothpaste and paper towels, I could make a minimum of five times what the shopping trip would cost me. I can see how some people get a charge out of the challenge of saving money, and I do use CVS the way this article discusses, but yikes. I'm lucky these days if I remember to pick up the toothpaste at the regular store.

Happy Birthday, Wargames!!

Love that movie. I saw it in a CT theater with my cousin and sister when it first came out, and when we got back to my cousin's house, we screwed around on his Commodore computer all night long, thinking we could do something like what we just saw. Kids.


-- Mr. McKittrick, after very careful consideration, sir, I've come to the conclusion that your new defense system sucks.

If Amy were a copyeditor turtle right now . . .

So here is how things have been going since Wednesday when I said I must buckle down and finish my incredible amounts of work:

* Thurs: Sit and work most of the day; get a decent amount done. Am lulled into thinking that this renewed effort and schedule can actually be maintained.

* Fri: Oh crap, forgot I have to see dr. at noon. Follow preappointment procedure, get wicked headache, get arms needled full of holes, come back home, get stomach ache, continue with wicked headache, work a few hours, then go see houses when R gets home. Too tired to keep working.

* Sat: Go shopping with mom in a.m. (mom never shops so feel too guilty to cancel for work), in last store in early afternoon and get call in mall dressing room from R, come home to take R to emergency room for foot, sit in ER for 3 hr, return home w/ gimpy R to find R's friends waiting, emergency clean of apt and relocation to living room to work, work all night on one project instead of all day and night on three.

* Sun: Set up work space in dining room again. Sitting here blogging. Resisting the urge to check the open house listings and make a call to family friends to go pick up a donated dresser. Hearing the Charlie Brown "ARGHHH" in my head.

!!Oh I hope I get a lot done today!!

A bit of a rant from Giles Coren, as pointed out by my CE Listserv. (Note that raw language is used.)

May I never experience such wrath from a client!

help. my husband is addicted to watching Scare Tactics. ugh.

Oh well. It was nice while it lasted. For a few days I was able to complete my work early in the afternoon and then I cleaned and organized the place for the rest of the day. I got to a couple movies and ate that really-good-but-bad-for-you popcorn. We even went to the shore, where I walked (well, teetered around) on the beach, ate boardwalk ice cream and pizza, got crushed in air hockey, and then made two holes-in-one at mini-golf and won the free game for a perfect shot at the end. :)

Now I am back to a full workload, so there goes that. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to be busy. But in comes the careful breakdown schedule, where I map out every minute of my day, actually get up before 8, and stay up as late as possible (which is hardly late these days). I've even decided to cast off my morning routine for now: my typical trip on the net from advice columns to job sites to publishing news to entertainment pages to other blogs. This takes more time than I've got. Bugger.

The problem is, no matter how much work I have, some things will not wait. The organizing must proceed. Garbage bags must be filled. Web sites must be visited and shopping must be completed. Houses must be walked through and considered. Dinner must be cooked. (Sadly, I've taken over this duty for now as the real writer in the family works on multiple real projects for real publication with real due dates.)

What is that sound? Ghastly.

Oh. That's just me hyperventilating.

I'm not going to become a consumer site, but these things really piss me off, if you haven't noticed.

Huge thanks to Schizohedron for pointing out this great site that I did not know about.

The Consumerist: Grocery Shrink Ray

If any other readers know really good sites that are professional and discuss consistently the screwing over of products, sizes, and prices that is going on, let me know.

Thanks to Work at Home Mom Revolution blog for pointing me to this great site ... so up my alley!! My top pet peeve right now is how so many merchants, supermarkets, restaurants are being cheap in this economy! You have to watch everything!

I Spy Restaurant Tricks

Reporting on what restaurants are shrinking, screwing with, and trying to get away with!