Wraithfodder's Lair

Well, because all the TV shows are scattered everywhere, nothing starts at the same time, I am very grateful for cable's episodes on demand, because last night I saw an ad for something and went "OH darn, I missed the SERIES finale for THE STRAIN!" So it was there, I watched it, sorta guessed who would self-sacrifice but hadn't seen the Master taking him over. Even though he'd been my favorite character, I was okay with him being incinerated by the Bomb because it all sort of led up to that.... And because it's on Sunday evening, and I don't watch much TV on Sunday nights, I forgot THE LAST SHIP, which I got caught up with. Watched first hour of EMMYS. Liked Stephen Colbert as host but the awards, well, WAY too rushed and I didn't know most of the nominees, so went to LAST SHIP which was a rather intense episode. Totally enjoyed BBC America's BROADCHURCH season 3... love it when people can look like real people and not perfect barbie doll types, which is what US tv is full of.

Z NATION is back on SyFy soon but nothing on that channel has enticed me back. Usually just too dark, literally, as you can build an interstellar spaceship but you can't find lightbulbs. Didn't care for LETHAL WEAPON at first but now I'm sorta fond of it.

That's about it. Darn if I can remember what else is showing on TV at the moment. Also spending way too much time on the Weather Channel with all the hurricanes, hoping Jose actually sticks around for a few days as it's pressure would then push Maria out into the ocean, otherwise.... gah, do not want to think of it!

So, I hit "Import Journal" and waited, then went, bah, I'll go outside this hot and humid day and WEEDWHACK the poison ivy. Note that this time, I wore long pants, sleeves, wellies, hat and took a shower immediately afterwards. Would have done more but battery in weedwhacker ran out.

Then I came back and it still said I was in queue, but also read that I could log out, so I hit refresh. Success! Now to figure out to do a custom journal. Is that easy? In the meantime, I'll try and find somthing else besides plain old vanilla white.

Fannish-wise, nothing hits me. However, I am enjoying David Tennant's last season of BROADCHURCH, and I've restarted ZOO but feel totally out of the loop on that one. Just waiting for mutant animals to eat people on that one. Asteroid may destroy Earth show SALVATION looks interesting but I hope it's not all politics. I think I'll stick around and watch THE MIST on Spike; don't particularly care if all characters die (I hate when I feel about characters that way) but it's sorta interesting. Unlike old days, nothing screams MUST WATCH NOW! Helps that cable has video on demand. Sure as heck wish they had it when STARGATE was on.

Meanwhile, I need a new PC. The decade+ one is too old and well, way too slow. Desktop or laptop? I have a netbook but it's slow, too. Want to stick with Windows so I'm compatible with lots of stuff like Word and Excel, and would like to be able to edit videos (want to learn that) and photos. Decisions, decisions. My brain hurts. Plus there's that pesky evil word... budget!

Have to say watching the news these days is awful. I won't get into the political stuff with the presidency, but four years can't pass too quickly for me!

However, first George Michael, then Carrie Fisher? ARGH!! I hate to say it, but when a rock star dies young, it sometimes is not too shocking but 53 is far too  young these days. I enjoyed his music and have to say that Freedom and Wake Me Up Before  You Go are my favorites songs that he did. But Carrie? Sigh. When they said she'd had a heart attack on a plane and it was 15 mintues of CPR to get a pulse, it did not bode well. And older women, women of my age (she was just a few weeks older than me!) do not do well with heart attacks. Symptoms are different and outcome, alas, worse. So damned sad. Again, too young. I was hoping to see old and crotchety and writing a tell-all-book about her unrequited love for R2D2 ;) And that photo of her dog, Gary, on twitter, staring out a window waiting for her to come home. Made me sniffle up something fierce. He'll be taken good care by her family, but Gary's lost his mom and constant companion. :(

RIP Carrie Fisher. You were definitely a bright and unique light in the universe.

Did anybody else watch this SyFy series? I was very happy to see that this segment/series was actually limited run. They'll do another one Candle Cover: ______ I guess next year. This one was sufficiently creepy but not overdone in the horror/gore/ripping off limbs like Walking Dead department. Slow pacing, like the old days. Likeable cast, although I was sorry to see one character I like get stabbed to death by the murderous little children. Well done.

Still no show to get hooked on.

Meanwhile, wonder what I would have said eons ago had I known Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher had had an affair back in the Star Wars days. As Carrie Fisher pointed, it's so old that it doesn't matter. Aiee, does that make me feel old! ;)

Found out about Shin Godzilla (or Godzilla: Resurgence as it's been termed in the US) being out for a mere two weeks, if that, from a friend on Twitter. Had to wait till it got closer to find out if one of the 400 theaters showing it was within driving distance, and it was! So my friend and I ordered tix through Fandago (costs a little more) because well, very limited run and we weren't sure of the attendance. We got to the movie early and there was one guy in theater thumbing through his smartphone. At about 30 minutes till the movie started, people started filing in. I'd say the theater was 90% full by the time the movie began, and we had no trailers, since this was limited run and a studio wasn't presenting it. @Funimation, who had a panel at New York Comic Con last weekend, put together the distribution deal.

Now, the first Godzilla from ye olden B&W days, rampaged through and stomped on Tokyo but slowly became more of a he's going to battle some other monster, or save us humans from another monster. This Godzilla? Bad-ass is what probaby best describes him.



I mean, yeah, all that red (which he had) and those hands/claws were creepy as were the really evil pointed teeth. He just stomped his way through Japan, and when the humans attacked? Well, let's say Tokyo is in need of a LOT of urban renewal. And the tail. You have to watch the movie to know all about his tail.

If you're a Godzilla fan, go and see it! It's finished on October 18th. The film is subtitled in English. Takes a while to get used to as there's a lot of rapid talking around meetings in the beginning.

Meanwhile on TV....
( Read more... )

In last two weeks, did three library book sales. The first one is huge and everything is in alphabetical order, so was easy to find stuff. It was in a school gymnasium so A/C and auditorium and I did find some books but not a lot. The second one was held outside under tents as library doesn't have that much space. Found half a dozen books and a Tony Hillerman audiobook. Last one was a sidewalk sale at another library. Not a ton of books but found a cheap book on mac'n'cheese (I may never use but the pictures are yummy looking). The last two I cooked, aka sweltered as we're now in a heatwave. Heat isn't so bad but yech, the humdity.is awful. I'm sure it's a lot worse down south. I scored the compete Fawlty Towers DVD set, in perfect condition, for $4! Also found a Stargate Sg-1 book - "Do No Harm". Read it already, and well, although I love the series, the book didn't appeal to me, so goes back into my sale pile.

While I love library book sales, I'm tired of those dealers with their scanners. The second library sale (under tents) had staff repeatedly yelling at those people (because normal folk aren't grabbing and tossing). I'd love to ban them for 15 minutes; let the average folk come in, grab some books to leave. The science section looked like it got trashed by five year olds. That's where the high resale stuff is. They grab book, scan, toss. I got in there and managed to get a few books I wanted, but geez. I bumped into a couple later on who were grumbling about some guy bumping into them and not apologizing, and yup, it was one of those dealers. ON the plus side, nobody was hunting Pokemons ;)

Meanwhile, The Last Ship is back on and doing good. Most shows tend to get secondseasonitis and go downhill. Have found a guilty pleasure in CBS's Braindead, with alien creatures chewing up people's brains and taking them over. In Washington DC. If that were true, it would explain so much, but Washington, sigh, is such a mess. I can't stand the Presidential election news and tweets. Why can adults behave so badly and people still want to elect them? (I'm talking both parties).

And as much as I hate the heat and humidity, it's preferable to winter and cold temps and high heating bills and shoveling snow.

All under the cut, as I have rambled.

( Read more... )

Good grief, it's been months since I last posted. At least it hasn't been a year. Fannishly I'm still in limbo. No show screams "must watch!" like the old days, which sucks.

But what sucks more is repeating what happened three years ago. Well, three years, two months, when a car rear-ended me. And guess what? It happened again! ARGH! This time it was a Honda Pilot which drove into me, sqooshing the trunk and sorta scalping the bumper. Had it been a CRV I'd have a few hundred in damage. As it stands, it's shy of $6K in damage. I hate this stuff. I'm not at fault, other driver got ticket (and no doubt, increased car insurance) but in some respects, she got off better as the SUV showed nary a scratch, whlie my poor Civic....



And I keep getting hit by Hondas. If it has to happen again, hope it's a Fit and not the humongous Ridgeline. At least the car wasn't totalled cuz I can't afford a new one. 

Well, the last TV season ended and the new one begins. Can't say Under the Dome getting the axe bothered me, as it got too weird for me and the ending just seemed too contrived. Sigh. Zoo wasn't too bad,although last season with about a hundred zoo animals? in a city street seemed, er, overdone, but it's fun summer fodder.

I've become lazy and am watching half the shows on video on demand. Anything after 10pm is usually relegated to that, except for The Strain, which I try to watch live to see what's going on. I am watching Fear the Walking Dead, and oddly, I'm waiting for the characters to be devoured as none of them appeal to me (the dog did, but well, very short-lived the poor critter was). Just curious as to how they'll segue this to Walking Dead, which I haven't watched in ages. Scorpion seems to have survived the transition to season two without too much radical change; can't say the same for Sleepy Hollow. Still enjoy the characters but for crying out loud, did they let a drunk Edward Scissorhands style the hair? Abbey's hair looks dreadful (yeah, I know, it's a style) and Ichabod's looks a little hacked. It's a lot more evident when the show's credits show the original hairstyles. It's shallow, but I have overwhelming desire to do something ;)

Quantico is interesting. Watching the first one and hey, there was Brian J. Smith from Stargate Universe, and he didn't last long, and it looks like Jake McLauglin from NBC's defunct Believe might be toast, but then they might have lied. Limitless seems fluffy, but I'm okay with that. I'll catch up when I can. Big Bang Theory is still amusing. NCIS is changing direction a little (OMG, GIbbs has a normal haircut!) and of course, it's against the Flash, which I'll be catching up on as it's against NCIS. Oh, Z Nation is bleeding characters (bye bye Mini Jack from SG1) but Murphy will no doubt survive and even though the character has done some very bad things, I love his snarky humor and voice. I keep missing Doctor Who so will catch up on that. And even though I gave up on CSI after William Petersen departed, I'll watch the two-hour finale eventually (did see last five minutes).

Due to football (blech), both Elementary and Person of Interest are delayed till, er, October and maybe 'mid-season' for POI...

Otherwise, nothing exciting. House work - waxing floors, painting, trying to declutter. Hoping the hurricane diverts and does not make landfall as the leaves are still on the trees - worst time to arrive. We do need rain but I'd prefer it not come with hideous damaging winds.

New York Comic Con is a week away and although tickets are sold out, the comic book store in NYC is still running contests to give away tickets. However, you've got to follow this and that, but unfortunatley, have to pick up tickets in city during the work week, which isn't happening with my work schedule and budget, so it'll be one day only, and I hope my goal of getting the Funko Godzilla toys is a success. They're my only real goal ;)

I really don't know how people find time to do twitter, facebook, instagram, live journal, etc., etc.Of course, if I had a newer PC, it might all go faster! ;)

Yes, it's summer. The snow has melted, the ice is gone, and now, the dangers of lawn mowing approaches. Not poison ivy, ticks or even rocks, but the rarely seen.... LAND SHARK!



What happens is I carve up the watermelon to look like a shark, then once we've basically carved out and eaten the innards, I put the shell of the shark outside, and then the local wildlife have their fun with it....


The eyes, of course, were gone and the insides scraped pretty clean. I'll check it out tomorrow morning to see what's left. It was moved several feet last night and upside down so something took it's time. I suspect the bottom teeth might get noshed on.

Yeah, things are boring in the 'burbs so you make your own entertainment...

Pretty much self explanatory :)

Good grief, I haven't posted since March??? Must have been the weary winter of freezing temps, shoveling snow, chiseling ice, well, fortunately, NOT so much of climbing up ladders with hot water to kill ice damns, er, dams.

And now it's Spring, er, Summer, no, Spring. Weather is having issues with what it wants to be. So now  I'm mowing lawns.

This week was fun. Picked up glasses, arm broke off. Gah. Took over an hour tonight to install the wretched Windows updates. What were they installing??? The hellish 3 hours wasted trying to get 3-day, no, Saturday, no, ANY tickets for New York Comic Con. I ended up with a Friday ticket. What a nightmare. The folks who run the con have absolutely no IQ when it comes to listening to the wailing masses telling them NOT to sell all tickets in one day (so they did) and then their servers crash and instead of posting ON THE WEBSITE, they only post to Twitter or Facebook, ignoring the fact that many people are at work on Wednesday afternoon and some are blocked form stupid social media stuff. They tell people not to click on the "buy tickets" thing on website, but to go another site entirely (which, by the way, keeps crashing). Totally inept. Hundreds of tickets on StubHub and eBay. This will be my last year going to that con, I fear. A root canal is less painful, really!

Fannishly, well, ABC cancelled Forever, which sucked (but at least it ended on an upbeat tone); Person of Interest got another season, but there are rumors of 13 episodes only. Otherwise, wow, not much on TV is of interest. I do like Scorpion, Big Bang Theory, The Flash, Gotham, Sleepy Hollow, but none of them tickle my fannish funny bone. I love to watch, but that's about it. Sigh... And although NCIS ended abruptly,we all know Gibbs will survive, cuz NCIS can't survive without Mark Harmon.

Only a week till Mediawest*Con, and Amtrak's disaster has almost screwed that up for a friend who of course has tickets on that particular line that is now in pieces. She's got a backup plan via Greyhound to catch up to an Amtrak connection, while after last year's hideous Amtrak trip, I opted to fly, so Delta keeps changing times of my fliglhts. Aggravating, but I think they're done. I hope. I think. Maybe....

Boy, I miss when I actually looked forward to Friday night TV - Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis. Now it's, well, I can't recall what is on SyFy anymore. Helix was interesting, but it got axed. Oh well, I can look forward to Under the Dome (derivative, but entertaining) and The Zoo, in which animals turn on people, which might be entertaining. Please let some bankers get eaten.... :)

Well, I've finally bitten the bullet and am doing some decluttering, which is long overdue and it seems like in next  year or two, we'll probably sell the house as the taxes are too high, the house too large. I know WHAT house I want, but it was in magazine, and I'd have to build it, and well, I sorta don't have a half million to do it ;)

So today, Due South goes bye-bye into the trash. Just the VHS tapes, as I have entire series on DVD now. Stargate already went, except one box of redundant Stargate Atlantis VHS, which I need to let go of, since I have the series on DVD. What I should do is when I see a good sale on Blu-Ray on SGA, get that. Of course, would help to have Blu-Ray player, and a TV that does not double as a boat anchor. Oh yes, and that gets me ranting... the major networks (CBS, etc.) are now saying, well, "screw you" to anyone without a modern rectangular tv. I get a nose off to the side, I can't even read the text on the news now as it's just half the word. Gah!! At least the local affiliates haven't gone that far... yet, but it's just a matter of time. What I want is the 60" 4K TV my brother up north has - it's GORGEOUS.



Alas, have found boxes of Due South related movies on VHS - stuff I taped off tv, movies with Paul Gross, David Marciano, Callum Keith Rennie, etc. Averse to chucking those just yet as I'm sure some are not on DVD and would prefer to see if anyone would buy them for nominal fee plus shipping. That's the trouble when you have space to store boxes, and VHS tapes were cheap, and the combination means... too many VHS tapes!!!

Another fan kindly posted this, but must share. It's both amusing and terrifying...

To those in the US (since Canada celebrated last month), and if not, just good for a laugh ;)

Nobody  has shown up yet, but soon. Hope I have enough candy. I ran out of ideas this year so simply carved pumpkins, using kitchen utensils. Hmm, it was actually fun.  Next year, maybe more pumpkins! ;)



and close-up of evil pumpkin....



and it's goofier sibling ;)

It never seems to fail that whenever a neat astrological occurrence happens, it's cloudy. Yup, rain last night (but no t-storms as predicted) and this morning was nicely warm, but, sigh, cloudy. Looking at all the pictures online just isn't the same. So, I can predict rain far into the future, as this always seems to happen.

Hoping for decent weather this weekend as I did score tickets for New York Comic Con. Not looking for anything in particular - just like to wander the venue and buy things I sure don't need but want ;) And it never fails that Person of Interest panels happen on Sunday, the day I could not get a ticket for due to NYCC's horrid online ticket buying system (don't get me started on that). And a Sleepy Hollow panel, too. Double darn!

Ah, Spring came, and then Summer, and now the weeds have taken over everything. I finally broke down and got a weedwacker (aka oh um, forgot the other name for it). Only real decision was gas vs. battery. I went with battery as well, mixing gas, all that noise. Not for me. I LOVE it! I whacked up a ton of weeds, and of course, being in shorts and tank top (bad idea) got spots of poison ivy or something all over me, but then again, saved days of work.

Then the lawnmower died. It was slogging along okay until I went around side of weedy hurricane-Sandy-debris that has still not been cleaned up and mowed over a truck part. Mower slammed to halt and died. Attempted repair. Thing shuddered so much we figured, time to get new one, so several hundred dollars (gah!) later, I can mow lawn again. I need to win lotto so I can hire someone to mow lawn, preferably Thor from the movies,and I'll let Loki handle the poison ivy patch ;)

I can't believe Stargate Atlantis hit its ten year mark while I'm also scraping up the gravel driveway into a wheelbarrow (got washed away during drenching torrential storms).  I'd love to see an SGA movie, but then again, too many movies done that far out don't work out too well.

Been to a few library booksales and now have completed my collection of C. .J. Box books. Somehow, I can see Joe Flanigan Joe Pickett. Would love to see those books become movies or a TV series, if done faithfully to the books. Started read the Tim Dorsey serial killer comedies (yes, a humorous series of books about a whacky killer in Florida). The audiobook was a scream. Also have read a few of Deon Meyer's books about an alcoholic policeman in South Africa. Very different and I'll see what else the library has.

TV-wise, we're now in the dearth of summer reruns, reality shows, and the horror of new shows starting and me not knowing. I miss the days of shows started in September. Period. But I've actually started and stuck with The Lost Ship (er, think that's the title, on TNT, er, USA, oh darn, with the guy from Grey's Anatomy, a show I never watched). It's pretty decent. And then i segue into the new FX series The Strain, about a virulent plague and nasty vampires (not of those teen angst vampires, of which I am burned out on and I never even watched 'em). So far it's pretty good and it's actually made me watch TV at 10:00pm. Only other shows I'll stay up for are Longmire on A&E and Person of Interest on CBS (the latter is in repeats though). I'm still checking out Under the Dome as I can catch it on cable rewind.

Still without pet, although I go down periodically to the local cat shelter and get my cat fix (including the occasional scratch and lots of cat fur). One day...

Oh yes, conventions. Did MediaWest*Con,which i go to for the fans, not the fandoms, although did have fun talking Benedict Cumberbatch and Sherlock, which was on my door decoration, which I discovered once I got home that I forgot to take photos of it! *headdesk*

Tried to get a three day ticket to New York Comic Con. What a nightmare! The website crashed, I got locked out of 3 day tickets, had the Saturday tickets in my cart and then, POOF! server error. I lost 'em. Had to settle for Friday. Don't know if I'll go through their hellish queue of getting tickets next year. They really need to limit it to two tickets per person, with names attached to each. Scalpers had over 700 tickets on eBay/Stubhub within an hour of the sale opening up. gah!

And that's about it for. Thinking about getting a tablet though, to of course websurf, answer email, but also to read books and listen to audiobooks. Any suggestions??.

I can't wait for Spring. Not the day that Spring begins, but for when all the snow is gone, when it's warm enough to sit outside in shorts in the nice sun and spend hours reading a book and just relaxing.

The snow that came eons ago (at least it seems that way) is still outside. At least a foot across the entire yard and right now it's still hard enough I can walk across the top without cracking it. It's supposed it hit 46 F this weekend, so if it melts, that would be nice. The big snowpile with snow marker eyes (in the previous post) is STILL there. It shrunk down a few inches but alas, I think it will be there until May at this rate!

Saw that SyFy's Being Human got the axe, but at least they're supposed to wrap it up. Seems Fox Almost Human is on the fence. Not sure about SyFy's Helix, which I am enjoying, Person of Interest is still fun. Miss Sherlock on PBS. What with Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman being so busy, I hope the next series comes out before I'm dead ;) Still enjoy Elementary too but wish I had more Benedict Sherlock...

So behind on fanfic but hope to catch up at MediaWest*Con, which is about three months away. Meanwhile, caught up with the Pendergast book series by Douglas Preston/Lincoln Child. Keep thinking William Fichtner would be perfect as that FBI agent who is drawn toward supernatural type cases. Forgot to reserve the book at the library, so now must wait until whoever got the latest CJ Box book, Stone Cold, till I get my paws on it. Was hoping they'd get an audiobook but it's not in the library's catalog. Ah, to win Lotto so I can just buy all this stuff!

I saw this ad before the Super Bowl, but it was neat to see it on TV. It's like a miniature 30 second bad SyFy movie that was actually fun to watch. Doberhuahua. I want a stuffed toy one! I love this ad!



And the snowstorm that started last night but finished this a.m. sucked. The snow was like creme brulee... crunchy on top, soft underneath, due to snow first, then sleet, then cold. However, as the hours wore on, the snow was more like slushy concrete as it packed down from the rain, although the top was still crusty so I had to break it with the shovel. Road wasn't plowed till mid-afternoon so didn't get to work. I'd rather have been at work than shoveling shoveling...

And more snow comes on the weekend. I want to be in Tahiti....