What is WRONG With People?

So I saw this post today on Facebook by a group I follow and was completely disgusted and disturbed.  If you can't get to the link, the main idea is that a gun manufacturer worker went out of his way to track down the leader of an anti-gun group, pretend to be a member of that group - took a picture with her no less - and then proceeded to thank her for all the free publicity her group has provided for his guns and employer.  If that's not troubling enough, the comments posted on the business Facebook page are disgusting, immature, and inappropriate.  Any self-respecting business would pull those comments - but I can only assume they appeal to their base demographic (pun intended) so they left them.  First of all, so the anti-gun group gave you some publicity and sales...good for you.  If negative publicity is more effective for your business than your advertising, I think it says something about what you're selling.  But I digress.  So why not just send the group leader a snarky email?  What is the possible motivation for seeking out this group, pretending to have the same beliefs, and then calling yourself out on your actions?  I guess maybe Todd Kauranen thought he was really making the group leader feel bad about herself and the group's actions, and in fairness, she probably was disgusted - that she let such a slimeball stand so close to her and there's digital proof of it.  I just don't get it.  What is wrong with people?

And to add to that, there are the comments by the "followers".  Which reminded me of an article I also read this morning, about the YikYak app and the trouble that anonymous comments can cause for high schoolers.  The difference between the Facebook comments by Todd's friends and the YikYak app is that the Facebook posts were made by recognizable, trackable people who most likely have their real names listed with their comments.  (Their mothers must be so proud.)  Either way, the maturity level of the comments seems to be equivalent.  And if that's the level of forward thinking and maturity displayed by even a few of the gun owners of America, I feel even less safe than I did before.  Yet I still don't own a gun, which I guess makes me less of a coward than they are - but I'll save that post for another time :)

Free Weekend

For the second time this month - no really it's happened twice! - I've had the weekend to myself. No kids, no husband...just peace and quiet. It has been AWESOME! My mom was nice enough to take the girls and my hubby had a boy's football draft weekend...I literally haven't known what to do with myself :) Twice in one month is a little too much though - but I'd kill to have this kind of time to myself once every couple of months!

Today I've been procrastinating on writing my lesson plans for this week, so I've been catching up on my TV. There always seems to be a bunch of stuff on the DVR that I don't make the time to get to. This morning I was catching up on "Merlin". I love this show...I've always liked reading stories related to the King Arthur tales, not to mention I'm a big fan of fantasy in general. It's a good show, and may possibly be the only one on regular networks that I can actually let my kids watch (seriously, have you seen the stripper-like outfits on 'Dancing with the Stars'?) I have to admit though, I think part of the draw is the BROMANCE between Merlin and Arthur. At any given moment you almost expect them to cry and hug each other...it reminds me of those two guys on 'Scrubs'. I, for one, find it hilarious. Plus, in the last episode, Arthur has to go through this maze, and I'm thinking "How very Harry Potter of him!" (If you've seen Goblet of Fire, you know what I'm talking about!) Sometimes the attempts to attract the HP fans are very obvious, but I don't mind too much. It's still a cute show.

I really need to get to work...but maybe I can delay some more and kill some time by going to the store!

Happy New Year

At this moment my girls are watching (or enthralled with is really a better description) Alice in Wonderland. Luckily it's the Disney cartoon - the other versions of it just freak me out. All I can think is that Lewis Carroll must have been on an acid trip or something when he wrote that. For some reason that story has always creeped me out.

Speaking of stories, my break is almost over, and all I've been doing for the last two weeks is reading. It's been very nice, but of course, like every school vacation I feel like I've gotten nothing done. I re-read the Twilight series - excellent, I highly recommend it - and I've been reading a lot of fanfiction. Other than that, I've still got a stack of books I need to get to. I need to re-read the first two books in the Eragon series (by Christopher Paolini) before I can get to the third book I haven't read yet. It's been so long I can't remember what happened at the beginning of the series. And then I've got a couple of professional/teaching books that I need to get to soon. Luckily there were no classes offered this semester that I needed for my graduate program so I've got the spring and probably the summer off. That should help me catch up on my reading.

The other main thing I've been doing on vacation is taking full advantage of my Freecycle group. If you haven't heard about Freecycle, check it out with my link (on the right). It's a great way to find things you might need, or more in my case, get rid of a bunch of stuff you don't! Basically it's an easy way to exchange just about any household items - and it's all free. The main idea behind it is that one man's trash is another's treasure and we need to keep things out of the landfills as much as possible. I have gotten rid of a LOT of stuff this week alone! I would recommend checking it out if there's a local group for your area.