This is a bit outdated, but I still thought it was weird enough to make you shake your head wondering what goes through the minds of some people.


Aldermen fear terrorists could poison gumball machines

by South Jersey News Online
Thursday October 11, 2007, 7:56 AM

DOVER, N.J. (AP) -- Fear that terrorists could poison children has led three Dover aldermen to begin inspecting gumball machines.

They've surveyed 103 machines in the Morris County town and expect to report their results on New Year's Day.

Aldermen Frank Poolas, Jack Delaney and Michael Picciallo have found 100 unlicensed machines filled with gumballs, jawbreakers and other candies. The three feel they're ripe for terrorists to lace with poisoned products.

Police Chief Harold "Butch" Valentine tells The Star-Ledger of Newark the odds are a person would win the lottery before terrorists would use the machines to launch an attack.

Delaney says their goal is to create a registration process to find out where the candy is coming from.

Last night while AliceKay was streaming, I saw some clouds moving in, so I went out onto my balcony to take a picture of them. It was raining lightly at the time, too. One picture was taken with a setting of "cloudy" and the other as either "daylight" or "auto" I can't remember.

As you can see, they both look pretty much the same. I discovered I don't have a "dusk" or "low light" setting. But I do have a "tungsten" setting, which I could use to make my pictures really freaky!

Who needs water anyway?

Right now I have no running water in my apartment. The water to my whole building has been shut off. So much for doing laundry tonight!

It all started yesterday....in a land far far away, oops wrong story. It really did start yesterday, though. I came home from work to see a note on my door that maintenance had come in during the day to fix something that was leaking. It said they replaced the tub diverter, which is the knob you pull up to switch the water from the tub to the shower head. Apparently, they said mine was leaking into the bathroom below, which is interesting because the one that was "leaking" is the tub I don't use. It's the hall bath, all I use that for is the potty, the sink, and I hang clothes to dry on the curtain rod. I shower in the master bath where all my stuff is. So how could it be leaking if I never use it???

I let it go, and went to work today. When I come home after running errands, I hurried to the potty to umm, well you know, and when I flushed, very little water came back into the toilet bowl. I checked the faucet on the sink, no water. When the toilet didn't fill back up, I suspected no water, but the faucet confirmed it. Being the curious person I am, I called the leasing office, and asked if by any chance the water had been shut off to my building. After being put on hold for a couple minutes, I received an affirmitive reply. I was also told someone from maintenance would be coming around to everyone in our building to let us know what was going on.

While on the phone checking up on my aunt, I had a knock at the door. I hung up with her, and waiting in the hallway was my good friend Jack the maintenance supervisor! Apparently, the leak they thought was coming from my bathroom, really wasn't coming from my bathroom. Duh! After working on it for most the day, they finally gave up and called a plumber. Unfortunately, he won't get here until at LEAST 8:30pm tonight. Jack said they'd be back around later to let us know when the water is turned back on, so I will probably throw a quick load in at whatever time that is. And I feel bad for the guy below me, this is the THIRD time in 2 years that he's had his bathroom torn up. I wouldn't be surprised if he moved when his lease is up. I might consider it if I were in his shoes. (Someone's working down there, I can hear them through the floor of my bathroom, lol)

What some of us go through just to watch some television:

Wednesday night I was sitting at the computer, was probably in chat, and was watching the Cubs game on the little tv next to me. About 10:30pm I think, I got off the computer to watch the rest of the game on the living room tv. I got comfy (with my right knee elevated and a cold compress on it), and watched the last three innings of baseball.

When the game was over, I was flipping through channels, when the picture and sound started going in and out. Eventually, it went out completely, and I was left with a black screen and a blue box asking me to be patient that the channel would come back shortly. It never did. Not on any channel. Since we were having some thunderstorms pass by, I chalked it up to the storms, turned the tv off and went to bed.

Thursday night, I was again at the computer, in chat, and watching the Cubs game. I was going to go to bed early so I could go in to work early on Friday morning, so about 10pm, I got off the computer. My plan was to listen to a little more of the baseball game from the tv in the living room while I got ready for bed. But, when I turned on the tv, I still had no picture or sound. Grrrrrr.

I picked up the phone to call Comcast. I dialed the 866 number, pressed 1 for English, pressed 1 for existing customer, pressed 1 to confirm the number I was calling from was the number on my acct, and waited, and waited and waited, and waited some more. I hung up to re-try it. I dialed the 866 number, pressed 1 for English, pressed 1 for existing customer, pressed 1 to confirm the number I was calling from was the number on my acct, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited again. Grrrrrr.

I hung up and mumbled to myself that I would do it differently next time. I dialed the 866 number, pressed 1 for English, pressed 1 for existing customer, pressed 2 that I was not calling from the number on my acct. I entered my phone number, and waited and waited, and FINALLY got through to be on hold. Whew! Since I figured I would be on hold for several minutes I got the cold compress, situated myself nice and comfy on the love seat, with the phone wedged against my ear next to the pillow. I closed my eyes and waited. After about 15 minutes, I heard a ring, and thought I would be connected to a live person.

Nope! It took me back to the beginning where I had to press 1 for English, press 1 for an exisiting customer, and press 1 to confirm the number I was calling from was the one on the acct. Since I knew I'd now be on hold AGAIN, I got comfy AGAIN with the phone wedged up to my ear and relaxed for more waiting. I almost fell asleep waiting for a live person. It was only another 20 minutes, but I was tired and wanted to go to bed, lol. I finally got through to someone, explained my problem, and set up an appointment for a technician to come out today between 1 and 4pm. I would have preferred Saturday, since I'm usually not home on Sunday, but I didn't want to wait until Monday and be forced to take time off work.

Fortunately, my aunt was understanding, and since there was no new movie to see this weekend, all I needed to do was go out to vacuum and mop her floors for her. She and I also cleaned up some birdseed that had spilled in her garage and was attracting ants, and I ran a couple errands. One was to Farm & Fleet to buy some birdseed for myself. They had 20lb bags on sale for $4.99, and while there I picked up a new finch feeder for her, to match the copper-topped regular feeder I got her for Mother's Day. Then I went to Wal Mart to get her some Rocky Road ice cream she was craving, and some sourdough hard pretzels that she wanted.

So this morning I was reading emails at about 11:30am, and the door buzzes. The technician was 90 minutes early. I scrambled into jeans and a t-shirt and let him in. He determined my cable box was bad, went outside to get another one, brough it in, hooked it up, and still nothing. That one was bad too? He unhooked my vcr and connected the cable box directly to the tv, still nothing. Going back outside, he brings in ANOTHER cable box, a different model with no time/channel display, hooked it up and VOILA! I have picture and sound now!

However, he didn't re-connect what he disconnected, and I didn't watch closely enough to what he was doing to be able to re-connect it myself, so I had to call Comcast back to have him come back and hook it back up the way he found it. They gave me a hard time about it, saying they don't normally hook back up third party equipment they might disconnect during a service call, which I think is a load of crap. He did come back an hour or so later, hook it back up and everything works fine now.

The only thing left I haven't had a problem with is my phone, so that's probably next month! Calgon, take me away!

I've held onto this, off my calendar at work. A conversation in chat last week reminded me of this picture that I had sitting around waiting to be scanned.

The answer is: C, Lake Ontario. Toronto, capital of the province of Ontario, lies on the northwestern shore of the lake of the same name, the smallest of the Great Lakes.

Sunday night while chatting, my neighbors decided they were going to start their Independence Day celebration a bit early. They started shooting off fireworks from the balcony, then switched to placing them in the grass between our buildings, then ended the night lighting them right on the balcony itself. The WOODEN balcony. This was the best picture I could get, without using flash. It was midnight after all. The black vertical lines through the glow are the wooden slats of the railing.

I didn't call the police, all the guys had to do was plead innocent, and if the officer didn't actually SEE them doing it, he had no way to prove it, it would just be my word against theirs. I confirmed this with the City yesterday after work. I also found out there is no noise ordinance for the City of Naperville. Any time, day or night, if someone is too loud and is disturbing me, I can call the police. They will come and ask them to quiet down. If they don't, and I call the police back, then the officer would ask me if I want to press charges for disturbing the peace. So there is no official quiet time like 9pm or 10pm in Naperville.

So I now have a picture, which I've sent to resident relations so she could see it. And I have all the debris from the fireworks. They were lighting off Magic Crystals. You can also watch a you tube video of what they are like here. I am now armed with lots of evidence and information for the next time they decide to shoot off fireworks on a Sunday night at 12:00AM.

Step 1: Change background on blog (Done)
Step 2: Scan picture to be posted on blog (Done)
Step 3: Transfer picture from camera to computer (Done)
Step 4: Update your friends on stuff


*Updated 6/3 9:28PM completion of Step 3 before Step 2

*Updated 6/4 10:39PM completion of Step 2