Last time we discussed Michael Jackson. Today's topic: John Hinkley.

I'm sure you've heard that he's petitioning for "solo"visits with his parents, at his parents' home.

Sort of wondering why this is even being discussed?

The reason this man isn't in prison serving consecutive life sentences without possibility of parole is because he was judged to be insane and a danger to himself and others, hence the sanitorium. Now we have the good doctors of St. Elizabeth's attempting to gain permission to allow him out? Solo?

I say if he's well enough to be considered for "solo" visits, then we move his solo, sane butt to a maximum security prison where he can trade in his boring white hospital gowns for bright orange jumpsuits and spend the rest of his days stamping out license plates. Wouldn't that be nice?

Have you been getting any of the great Michael Jackson jokes that have been madly circulating on the web joke lists? I got about 8 of them yesterday, but one of them was so funny I laughed out loud. And then, at the sound of me laughing, I laughed even harder until I got a bit teary-eyed.

The one that really got me was the one that was called MJ on the Run, a pictorial take-off on the OJ police chase. Instead of a white bronco, MJ had a white suit on and riding a tricycle. You had to see it. Trust me, it was funny! :D

The point of my story is that, through my laughter, I sort of put myself in an awkward position by gaining the attention of a border-line psycho coworker who is sympathetic to the MJ situation. She thinks he is innocent of ALL wrong-doing, a victim of unfounded suspicions and that he is a gentle person of no perversions, who is being tortured simply because he is famous and others are jealous of him.

Basically, her argument is "famous people get tortured and assigned perversions they don't have" ... I see ...

Before I continue with the story, I think perhaps we should test that theory by looking at some other high-wattage stars as a bit of validation for her stance:

Julia Roberts: I don't remember hearing that she has little girls doing slumber party sleepovers in her bed over at her house. Meg Ryan, Julia Roberts, Sandra Bullock, Pamela Anderson ... Nope, them either.

George Clooney: he's a single guy, very famous ... uh, nope, never heard of him having 'let's be little boys forever' or 'show me yours and I'll show you mine!' slumber parties with little boys. Harrison Ford, Sean Connery, Tom Hanks, Russell Crowe ... not a one of them.

Maybe it has to be singers? Okay:

Mariah Carey. Whitney Houston. Celine Dion. Shania Twain. Faith Hill. Tina Turner. A few of them might have problems, but nothing involving underage children...

Eminem. Justin Timerlake. Kid Rock. Tim McGraw. Prince. Garth Brooks. Ozzie. Ditto on the problems, as above, but again, nothing involving underage children.

So what can she mean with her great conspiracy theory?

Let's look at this from a different angle: who has sleepovers with little children or uses sedatives to gain their pleasures?

* R. Kelly -- He has been found with little girls sleeping in his bed, but not little boys. (I guess that means he doesn't have obvious homosexual tendencies; he's just a pedophile.)

* Woody Allen -- he's a sick bastard, but at least he married his daughter (is he from West Virginia?) so I don't know if we can count him, TECHNICALLY

* The guy who played the principal in Ferris Bueller's Day off, and Paul Rubens (Pee Wee's playhouse takes on a whole new meaning now ... and I loved PeeWee, damn it!) --- both of them have been known to have sexually explicit material picturing underage children, but I don't know if there were any actual live children involved.

* The Maybelline heir, the one who uses Ridilin and videotapes so effectively on his unwilling dates --- he's pretty questionable, but, at least he practices his perversions on adults. Not that that makes it okay, but moves him out of the pedophile file. ;)

Okay, I think we have ruled out "Superstars" and "big star Musicians" as generic targets for "false rumors of child molestation by evil, jealous people", because the ones who are in MJ's group are not by any stretch "superstars" except possibly Woody Allen, and we've already put him in a separate category.

So this means her theory is based on ... what she want to believe. Well, that's certainly acceptable. Technically, if she sees the best in others, that makes her a good person, right? Ha.

This coworker upon hearing me laughing at the Michael Jackson jokes jumped immediately on the assumption that I believe he is guilty, and took an argumentative tone with me. I said that I don't know whether he is or not, that is for the authorities to determine. The one thing that I know MJ does, and which I feel is inappropriate, are the slumber parties. It is not normal for a 45 year old man to have little boys sleeping in his bed with him, no matter how innocent it is rumored to be. I said that guilty or not, I am enjoying all of the clever MJ jokes and silly pictures people are circulating.

The psycho coworker said "so, I sleep with my dog ... does that mean I'm guilty?"

I said with a giggle, "Umm, well, I guess that depends on what you mean by 'sleep with your dog.'"

Unfortunately, she is one of those individuals who has absolutely no real sense of humor, unless it is a joke she is telling. My attempt went right over her head. Instead of laughing she jumped right in on a long-winded, boring recital of why she thinks those who make fun of Michael Jackson and his plight are evil-minded and petty ... (that would mean ME) ... and how vicious people can be (aka, ME) ... and then I got a lecturing, preachy story about how other (besides ME) evil people had made a supposition about her, based on wicked speculation not proof, saying that she might be having an affair with her preacher. Very interesting. Not. And, yeah, that's the same thing as a 45 year old man having little boys sleep over in his bed. Same thing indeeedy. (Thanks for wasting 25 minutes of my life that I'll never get back.)

I disagreed with her, attempted to have a lighthearted, mini-debate but, sadly, it seems she is one of those blunt, closed-minded people who have inflexible opinions that they defend very vocally (although not always with validity) while they get furiously angry at your opposing opinon and take it personally if you don't change your opinion to reflect their own ... so deciding practicality was the way to go in the face of such a wasted cause, I wisely closed my mouth and changed the subject.

She is entitled to her opinion, no matter how misguided. Besides, it gives the rest of us someone to laugh at; I've gotten a few chuckles from this story so far... HEEEEE-HEEEEEE!

Oh, yes, I'm going to Hell. Are you going to be there with me, so I have someone fun to talk to? >;D

Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch has been raided because of charges filed by the parents of a young boy. It's being covered on all of the tv stations, and all of the radio stations. Everyone has an opinion of "I think he did it." "NO, he's innocent."

The thing that bothers me is what the hell is wrong with the parents of the child who have filed the charges ... why would they have ever let their child near this man? Is it only obvious to me that there is something seriously wrong with him? Or is it that the parents don't really like their son, so they have no problems letting him sleep over at the house of a suspected pedophile?

This totally sickens me.

I went Christmas shopping this weekend to try to distract myself from the fact that I turned down an offer to go to the Outer Banks with my favorite ex-boyfriend. It didn't work, although I have gotten a good start on my shopping.

Damn.

Are morals really good for anything, except a sleepless night once in awhile? I don't think so. And you will have to really work to convince me of that.

S P A M.
There is a reason that is a 4-letter word.

It is incredibly aggravating to log into an email account you have protected by not posting it anywhere in a chat room, on the web, using it only for business emails and yet, you've still been the victim of spammers.

I just finished sending 900 emails (that arrived since yesterday morning) to Yahoo marked "this is Spam." I don't actually have any great confidence that sending it the powers that be, marked as spam, will make it stop, but it gives one at least the pretense that "I am all-powerful and in charge of my own mailbox."

Truly, I think that people who send Spam should be billed, just as if they had sent an actual letter via USPS; I believe it would cut down drastically on the amount of Spam, and free up the all important, ever-threatened bandwidth. All of those telemarketers bitterly complaining about their potential loss of income due to tougher laws should also be allowed to continue, but they need to be billed a surcharge that should be exorbitantly high. I think the internet should be free of charge for regular users and free from irritation by the societal deviants known as child pornographers, psycho stalkers and spammers.

Am I being unreasonable? I don't think so. And that is why I'm going to run for a political office.

Heeee-heeeee! I'd send Republicans and Democrats alike scurrying for cover if they thought I was serious. ;)

On the way to work today I had a close encounter of the stupid kind, something that always seems to happen when it rains. Today's was really interesting though: I got behind someone who was so short she couldn't see over her steering wheel. Yet, someone at the Division of Motor Vehicles gave this woman a driver’s license.

Because she was obviously straining to reach the gas pedal while at the same time craning her neck to try to see where she was going you may have guess that she was driving very erratically, weaving and doing the "car jerk" (where you hit the gas, take your foot off, hit the gas, take your foot off … you get the picture, I’m sure.)

Unfortunately, I was behind her on a one-lane road that was normally a short cut between two major roads; today there was nothing short about it.

After following this woman for what felt like 14 years, I finally saw my opportunity to roar around her (my truck does not merely accelerate, it ROARS, which is really satisfying) and blew past her just in time to miss the traffic light. Believe it or not, this woman got into the left hand left turn lane, behind me. I looked in my mirror just to see if she was trying to gesture obscenely at me, or something. If she was, she was too stunted for me to see it. Meanwhile, about 10 cars pulled up behind her, in the same turn lane. I felt very sorry for them because there was no way they were getting through the light, because it was a quick light on the best of days, and there was nothing quick about the woman behind me.

The light finally changed and I was able to pull out into the intersection. I glanced behind me and noticed the woman hadn’t even moved. I heard a chorus of blaring horns behind me and I giggled, completely understanding and sympathizing with the frustration of the drivers behind her. I saw the light change, and at this point the stunted woman pulls out, almost getting plowed under by the traffic that now had the right of way. She stayed in the left lane, and all around her were cars that were abandoning the “fast” lane for the chance to pass her on the right. Her car wobbled on down the road, accompanied by horns and roaring engines, looking like she wasn’t even moving, unless it was in reverse.

Remember when women’s undergarment advertisements used to be geared towards women? This new Victoria’s Secret commercial is made for men, very obviously. Not to say it isn’t very striking to see scantily clad women wearing black lace bra/panty sets with big white angel wings, but add the heavy metal biker music and the montage effect of gorgeous women in provocative poses, and you definitely have a commercial geared to the men.

How many women actually buy all of their panties from Victoria’s Secrets? They’re pretty, but also pretty expensive, considering they wash apart very easily, even when hand-washed. Not that I don’t have a few cherished favorites from there, but I must admit that most of them are gifts. ;D

When we last left our intrepid heroine, Sharondarella, she was attempting to fight off the horrors of ickness, but unsuccessful in her battle, so, lucky reader, you are spared the rest of the interminable details of the not-incredibly exciting New York Trip.

(Can we allow her the excuse of the ick as for her lack of blahging? Oh, please, lets do!)

She is now back and Rrrrrrrrrrrrrready To Rrrrrraaaaaaaaaamble!

How about we start with a recap, just a quick one:
(Ha! Sharondarella doesn't know the meaning of "quick" when it refers to telling a story!)

On Friday night, I went to the Caps game with dearest Stevie, who had redeemed himself from the attempted ickness poisoning by producing two Caps Tickets a mere 15 rows from the ice, and he invited his recently icked sister to go! Needless to say, all was immediately forgiven. :) Friday was Halloween, but it didn’t stop me from abandoning the happy pumpkins I had carved in anticipation of the many Halloweenies expected to pop by that night.

Seeing as it was Halloween, it was not unexpected that people would show up dressed in outrageous costumes. There were many adults with their kids in attendance --- (kind of cruel to deprive your child from the fun of candy gluttony that is Halloween Trick or Treating, but hey, this is HOCKEY!) one of the best costumed was a little girl dressed up as French's Mustard. Although, Stevie will disagree and pick the itty-bitty tiny pumpkin child who got her picture taken with Slapshot, (the Caps Mascot) to Steve's everlasting envy. Every so often pictures of cutely attired kids would flash on the monitor, delighting every kid in the arena.

Needless to say, the Caps won. I can without (much) false modesty say that I am lucky for the Caps, they have never lost a game with me in the stadium. (Luck like that I should head on up to Atlantic City, right? Nope, it only works in Hockey.) We left the arena, jubilant and exuberant, and when I got home my two cute pumpkins were still glowing for me! I even lit them the next night, too, as a last hurrah before admitting Halloween is over and on to the next holiday ... CHRISTMAS!

Yes, I know that Thanksgiving is in there, too, but come on, that's not a holiday. It's just a warm up, a chance to visit friends/family and eat turkey; CHRISTMAS is a REAL holiday! In honor of the season, I started my Christmas shopping, officially, on Saturday, November 1st. It was almost 80 degrees, but I had the spirit (if only I had extra deodorant to go with that spirit, life would have been grand!)

I shopped, came home with many bags, a warm glow (did I mention that it was HOT?) and an inflated sense of self-worth. See what you can get from shopping? Men just don't understand how shopping is so empowering; probably because they've never shopped with me.

Anyway, that pretty much catches us up to “How did Sharondarella spend her weekend?” and now we can move on to the obsession that been filling my nights, an obsession that is Scandalously Erotic. Tantalizing. Teasing. Titillating. A Feast of the Senses.

What is this obsession?"

I know you are dying to know, so I'll just blurt it out before I get too embarrassed to talk about something so intense, so personal, so full of self-revelation ... such a shameful addiction about where I have been spending my nights, my spare daytime hours and my not-so-spare daytime hours sneaking out, going to my secret rendezvous with …………………EBAY!

And the sad thing is, I don’t even have anything in particular to shop for, instead venturing out for Anything. Everything. Bargains. Deals. Treasures. Overlooked steals. I look for whatever is about to finish up and then I just know I have to have it.

Someone needs to HELP ME!