I don't know if I will be around much... I am going home for Thanksgiving.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL MY FRIENDS ON VIEWPOINTS!!!

I was jealous of Jo's picture of her doggy running, so I took one of my own! Kilo in mid-flight with his flaps up! I can't re-arrange my photos right now! Go through the album or wait a bit till the bug is worked out!

Here's a definition from the Urban Dictionary:

rippy status

to be dismissed as an individual who tries to sound smart, but is really a complete moron

Doesn't everybody have someone in their lives that's on rippy status? ha ha ha now I know the proper phrase for it!

What a pain to change my avatar everywhere! I still don't know how this one's going to get cropped for Twitter. I actually really like this one a lot, it may stick for a while. I am glad that in 2010, I will have 12 months to get to VIP again. Sorry about the blog posts chronicling my rise through the ranks... I kind of can't believe people are paying attention to stuff I say, and making comments and helping out, and voting even. Thanks to you if you did any of those things (and if you are reading this you get an automatic thanks!)

Yahhhh! See my new avatar! Thank you Vidalia Slice Wizard! It made me VIP, and one review away from a Barnes & Noble $5 gift card! I waied forever to get a double-digit HV review and picking the Victoria's Secret Miraculous Push-Up Bra to review was just the ticket!

ps. I'm trying to "pay it forward" all of the HV's I got. It could take a while, but I am working on it!!!!

LOL you guys! I got over 100 helpful votes in a week. I feel loved. FYI, I wasn't begging you to HV me so I can get to VIP faster. Although it is appreciated eleventy million percent! I would also like to plug for MRSverret who is almost there, too and has great reviews on baby stuff, as well as others!

I just haven't had as much time to review the closer my RI trip comes.I know, PattyTherre had time to write 52 reviews in a week, care for her ailing sister and take on the responsibility of her sister, LaurieM. Maybe one day I'll get super woman status. I wonder what her wrestling name is....  XD

Thanks again, y'all!

Your ever-lovin'    Dayna

46,705 points. Closer and closer to VIP. Yes, writing in key categories spiked my number of views. I got a surge in helpful votes, too. I actually stayed off of surfing the internet, and watching TV for two days! I checked my email here and there, though. I got a book called Two is Enough: A Couple's Guide to Living Childless by Choice, and I knew right away I wanted to review it. I wanted to read it straight through and then go right to the review while it was still fresh in my mind. TV and idle surfing would only serve to distract me, and I would lose my focus and I wanted to do a review that would give the book justice.

My insurance company and my psychiatrist ended up in a fight about giving me the sleep medication Lunesta, and while they were busy, I stayed awake. They wanted me to try generic Ambien first. I tried it years ago, and it was bad. Anyway, now I am having other issues, and I am irritated by almost everything, and my new meds leave me with the "morning taste" in my mouth all the time.

It's good to take time off from "brain popcorn" as I refer to it. Popcorn will fill you up but is non-nutritive. TV and net surfing mostly do the same thing for your brain.

Today is Halloween, or All Hallow's Eve. I bought a ton of candy, because I don't know how many children and/or adults will come a-knockin'. I always worked at Dunkin' Donuts every holiday. The first one I did not dress up for. After that, I bought the cheapest costume I could find on the rack on the temporary costume kiosk in the mall, and that was the one I wore for many years after that. It was a witch costume, kind of. It had a knee length thin black skirt with ragged hem, and a brightly colored purple shirt with smiling cartoon skulls on it, with royal blue eyes. The bottom of the shirt and the ends of the sleeves were also ragged. There was a "belt" included. It had a vinyl black bat shape on it, and the ends were thin nylon that tied in the back, and cinched the baggy skull shirt. I lost my pointy hat every year, but somehow managed to keep the black fishnets. I wore my black Nike tennis shoes with the royal blue swoosh. Customers asked me why I wasn't wearing heels. I didn't even want to wear the costume. Besides, at the end of my shift, when I had to throw all the donuts away, they all didn't fit in the giant trash can all of the time, so I had to get in there and stomp them down, like grapes in a wine vat. Who wants to do that in heels or stocking feet?

Also, five hours in heels? The space between the counter and the donut case was about four feet. I basically ended up in a narrow corridor on a tile floor without a lot of freedom to move most of the time. Except to clean messes up on the tables and sweep the floor. Heels? I don't think so. The whole shop was very very small, with only a few tables and no public restroom. What an ordeal. People always freaked about the bathroom and threatened to call the state. Our seating capacity was less than twenty people, so no rest room required. That didn't stop people from begging. I would always take the little children back there, though. They marveled at the huge mixer they made the donut dough in. Halloween makes me think of Dunkin' Donuts and that tired old costume. One time I wore it to a Halloween party at a friend of a friend's in Utah, and I was turned away, because they didn't want "evil costumes" in their house. You saw the description... draw your own conclusion.

Are you all of a sudden getting comments on reviews and HV's from me in one big chunk? I save a day and spend a few hours reading friends' reviews so some people get 7 or 8 comments from me all in a row. that's how i roll...

Holy crap I need 22 more reviews in key categories over 900 characters to get VIP. That is if I don't get any more helpful votes, friends, and no more discussion posts. Of course, I can write reviews in other categories, and I want to. It's weird, because I am actually limiting myself in the categories, when if I cranked out lots of reviews over 900 characters in any category, I'd get there anyway. I just don't want to be the pet and movie/TV review girl. That's my new avatar... it's me saying "oh! I am never getting VIP!"

I am having so much trouble sleeping these days. Dr. Horvath prescribed me temazepam and it worked for a few days... now, not so much. ugh, maybe I'll go make another entry on my other blog.

Ooooh! One of my reviews is getting close to the double-digit Helpful Review mark! The first one!!! I have got about 6,000 points to go until VIP. It seems like the closer I get, the farther off it seems. Like I said before I am trying to stick to key categories. Maybe that's why I am lazing around review-wise. I don't know why... I said I thought they were boring, but once I get going on them, it's not nearly as bad as I thought! Besides, those reviews have more chance of getting HV's, and views, by that token they will get me there even faster. Oh, I just thought of two big ones I can do... off to the task!

Update: Four more boring reviews cranked out. I'm going to win another Fandango gift card. I accidentally deleted the email that had the last code in it. I don't want a gift card, I want a badge. So...tired....must...stop...for...now

I have a Blogger blog, and at the top, underneath the title, the description is: blah, blah, BLOG. People talk about so much crap all the time, and I am one of them! Weirdly enough, this blog is tons different than that one. The discussion boards on here are my outlet, so I don't need to put so much about divisive issues. On the discussion boards, you get to talk to people, so I love that. Sometimes lots of people will read my other blog and not comment. I don't care if they do or not, and I moderate all of them anyway. I actually only have the StatCounter on my blog to see if my family reads it. It's invisible. They don't know that! ssshhhhhh!

Well, someone from my old high school friended me on Facebook. I had no idea who he was, and currently he has 733 friends. On my FB, I show as Dayna Pitcher. No maiden name. If you type in my maiden name, you can find me, but I am not showing up in the list with it on there. So, no one from HS usually friends me because they don't see a familiar name, and no one ever got DeFeo right, spelling it or saying it, so... that tactic has worked.

Well, this guy - a complete stranger - takes this quiz on Facebook (I loathe those quizzes!), and it says his mental disorder should be bipolar disorder and it gives the symptoms. His comment is: LOL I am not that crazy! Well, I have bipolar disorder, so I went totally ripsh*t. I commented that it wouldn't be so funny if he actually had it, and that others' medical problems are a riot.

Then he posts on his wall about how people can be so sensitive, and we need to laugh at ourselves more, he has mental issues, what is society coming to, how people take offense at one little thing. And he gets all of these comments like people need to lighten up, if they can't take it then "sod" em (IDK what that is), I have bipolar disorder and my peeps would have laughed, on and on...

It really reeks of the "my best friend is black so I can say that" defense. People should be allowed to be as sensitive to whatever as they want to be. You don't have to understand why, but don't force your belief on them, or belittle them because they are sensitive! If he has mental issues (which he said he did), the fact that that quiz even existed SHOULD offend him, and everyone with any diagnosed mental disorder at all. Suggesting that everyone has some kind of mental disorder, take the quiz and find out which one... totally feeds into the myth that mental disorders are faked up, and psychiatry is charlatanism, and you can just snap out of it.

I am not big on the PC movement, but I respect what they are trying to accomplish. It's way overboard, IMO, but maybe you need to do that to counter the extremes in prejudices the other way. Some people think that the Native Americans are going overboard, because they want the Washington Redskins NFL team to change their name. The team has made them spend tons of money in court and appeals to get a judgment which is still being decided. We did, and let happen horrible things to the Native Americans, and they still suffer! But people say they are way too sensitive. Well, I would be too. And I think it would be a nice gesture to change the name, which I do believe is offensive, even though it's going to cost you a ton of money in merchandising. Give them a break.

Lots of times when people in general say others are too sensitive, it's because they are really insensitive and don't want to be called to task on it. In a strange way, they are being really sensitive about other people being too sensitive.

I am not overboard sensitive about my mental illness, but when I do see stereotypes being spread around and people making light of a serious situation, I WILL say something. Not just about mental illnesses, but blatant injustices to any group considered a minority. People have the right to be sensitive, unsensitive, oversensitive, dead inside, whatever.

But don't you tell me that I have to feel the same way you do about situations. I will take you down to Chinatown, my friend.

All right, five reviews in key categories. I have had enough for one night. They weren't as boring as I had imagined them to be. It's tiring, though. I haven't cranked out that many just writing one after another without a break, in a long time. PattyTherre said she cranked out 400 reviews in a month one time. I couldn't do that and maintain my sanity, especially with the detail she goes in to. It wouldn't matter what the incentive is. In a few days, we'll see how many points I have accumulated. It's kind of funny, lately I have been getting way more helpful votes than I have ever gotten! I would usually get one to three maximum, and go many days with getting zero. One time recently I got twelve in a day. I combed through my list of reviews, in case it was a glitch, but no... I actually racked up 12 in a day. Well, woo-eee for me. Hope y'all are seeing an upturn in yours, too!

Right now I have around 41,000 points. I started here in June, so I am thinking it would be pretty cool to get the VIP Badge for six months of work. I have tons of things to review. I am trying to broaden the categories that I am writing in. When we have contests, it's usually for reviews in key categories. You get bonus points for those, too. Since those are the "bread and butter" here at VP, I'll probably be doing more home and garden and electronics reviews.

Honestly, I don't think those are very fun. Helpful doesn't always mean fun. I think it's beneficial for all of us to drive lots of traffic to the site, so I will do the less fun ones.

If I had a child or used cosmetics with any kind of normal frequency, that might help. I love baking and cooking, so it's off to the cabinets I go to let people know what sticks to what, or what cleans up in a snap! Look for me if you are into that kind of stuff.  :)   -pd

Equivocation... the switch-referencing kind. commit...commit...commit

Like my new avatar? I was listening to that Smashmouth song All Star. The part where they say: "she was lookin' kinda dumb with her finger and her thumb in the shape of an 'L' on her forehead..." cracks me up. I know that makes me the dumb looking one. Either that or I am calling everyone else a loser... hmmm.... I just think it's goofy. I get all of my avatars from a royalty-free stock photography website   123rf.com   I pay for them, but they are really cheap, and I know I am not ripping someone else's artwork off. They have thousands and thousands of images at different prices for different resolutions. I should review them... maybe someday when I clear up my drafts list. Adios...

*yawn* so tired. hard to electronically keep up with everyone. taking sign language. practicing lots. new ink soon. fall is coming. fade to gray...