wraithfodder | Entries tagged with misc

I taped it, on the VCR, which I realized after speed-searching it today, that, well, the heads get dirty, so picture, etc. dropped out, but oddly enough, it didn't bother me. At least I still have a head cleaner, although I'm sure they're extinct.

Anyhoohow, I basically watched bits and pieces of the Oscars, as I had no real vested interest in any of the movies. I was glad to see 'Hurt Locker' get all its wins. I pretty much figured 'Avatar' would clear out the SPX awards. I really liked 'Avatar' and will buy it when it comes on DVD, but the overall plot was nothing too new. I mean, we've all sorta seen it before. Otherwise, the SPX on it were fantastic! I'd even have chosen 'District 9' over 'Avatar' to win as that was a pretty good film.

I heard all the bruhaha over Farrah Fawcett being left out of the memorium segment, but then again, all the TV actors (far too many of them) were listed in the Emmy's memorium segment. This was devoted to movie folk only, which is why lots of names may have seemed unfamiliar. And like they said, you can't fit them all in, unless you wanted James Taylor to keep singing the same song, over and over...

I was glad to see some color in the dresses. Am sick and tired of black outfits only. There were some hideous outfits out there. There was the one that looked like a nudibranch. Fine on a sea slug, but not a person. I did not like Sarah Jessica Parker's outfit at all, despite the raves from some critics. I hate to say it, but in one segment when she was on stage, I was thinking Bride of Frankenstein. Really, the backlighting and dress. Shudder. I shall have to find the ever-present best and worst dressed articles, which I'm sure are all over the internet. Ben Stiller in Avatar outfit may give me nightmares...

George Clooney had some wonderful facial expressions and that man still looks good with gray hair! Um, um, some of the jokes worked, others didn't, the "oh look who's in the audience" ran overly long. I saw no need for a dance segment, but was thrilled to see "Up" win but all the others were fantastic too. I want to see those animated shorts. Hopefully IFC will show 'em (unless they already did)...

And after speedsearching all of the Oscars, that's about it. I mean, gone are the days of the actors turning up stoned to accept their awards, or Cher in incredibly outlandish outfits...

Just what I'm reading, watching, kevetching about, etc. etc.

( Under cut for size and rambling ;) )

Ugh, sick, so am staying home from work today. Not deathly sick but the miserable kind that will drive me to bed shortly cuz I was going to lie on couch and watch TV until I realized just how dreadful daytime TV is. How do people watch it all day? I mean, half the cable channels seem infested with infomercials (which, come to think of it, could put me to sleep as long as that dead guy who talks really loud isn't doing the infomercial... oh, Billy Mays... yup, still doing ads).

I could watch a DVD but the DVR died. well, it's stuck in an eternal loop. I went to divide a title and that's what did it in. Apparently this Panasonic DVR has a software hitch. I googled it. I was dismayed to find the word "hosed" in terms of fixing it, although some people have fixed it using a hex fix, something to do with zeros and such. Of course, it means wiping the hard drive, so... those Stargate Atlantis ads are toast (luckily I burned and finalized disks on those) but Human Target is gone, as is all of Stargate Universe, but oddly enough, no bummer there. It'll repeat and I haven't really watched them again. I think it's gonna take a while to get it fixed. I am so glad I have held onto my antiquated VCRs... but to watch DVDs... hmm, guess I'll have to see what's out there. Not buying Blu-ray player unless it plays all DVDs and can work with 15 year old tv...

Anyway, I had on the news to check the weather, even though I'm not going out (drenching rain and high winds, ugh), and had on CBS, which I turned off after they went to Perez Hilton for news. I mean, really... the guy's a leech on society, a gossip monger (gah, check out his twitter, yech!) and I really don't care about 'Brangelina' or their ilk. If they split or stay together, eh, it's their business.

So I went to NBC, caught weather and then a segment on Pet Peeves in the Office. Oh, gads, this was so on target. Annoying co-workers. People who steal your lunch from fridge. The people who mess up the microwave and never clean it. They forgot the people who hog the microwave. If you're microwaving, they stand there and go 'how long will you be?" like it's THEIR microwave. Then there are the people who leave food in the sink, and dirty dishes. but my pet peeves are more people who don't bother to tell you things you need to know to do your job (they think you absorb through osmosis or what?), the ones who come in late, leave early and no one seems to care (of course, these are the ones who make a ton of money, so they get exemptions? gah). Swear (I swear, I hear the "F" word more at this job than anywhere else, except the first episode of "Spartacus" ;) ).

Ah, to win lotto and leave the cubicle ratrace...

Bad day? Check out this video, posted at the BBC and probably elsewhere, of an overly affectionate cat climbing up a policeman issuing a traffic summons! http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8366386.stm

I just love this comic. Snerched from http://www.gocomics.com/reynoldsunwrapped/ and it's really worth going there and checking 'em out :)

Argh, must turn off TV. Moonlight marathon running. I'm thinking I should just fnd a good deal and buy the DVD set, thus avoiding the pretty horrendous ads on the Chiller Channel (however, I do thank them for doing vampire week, cuz Forever Knight will also be airing!)

and I need to begin culling all the Stargate Atlantis stories I've bookmarked and want to read, and the Big Bang stories are done. OMG, I need a two month vacation to handle all this.

Just a couple things... an excellent article/opinion piece on the true cost of war...

On Veterans Day, feeling the cost of war...
Afghanistan was abstract, until my friend's flag-draped coffin came home...

Full story at http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-abraham11-2009nov11,0,16249.story

And Damian Kindler posted this link on his twitter today. Someone gathered together reunion videos, of veterans coming home and being greeted by their pets. Very heartwarming. I never knew a dog's tail could wag that fast!

http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/40324

It's not a photo that the press is going to publish, because it's just too graphic in nature *cough* but some of us feel the news must go on! Alas, this is the result of paranoia that is running rampart in some parts of society. Very sad...

( Photo below the cut )

Snerched from

sharpes_hussy

You're diligent about cleaning your PC's screen, but sometimes the smudges don't come off. Why? Because they're on the OTHER side of the screen, of course! So, click here

http://www.raincitystory.com/flash/screenclean.swf

for a complimentary cleaning.

Well, hey, I've been eating wild raspberries for a week now. Breakfast, dinner, but not lunch - gotta have some protein! Anyway, I've put some photos under the cut (for size) in case you want to see what a big plate of raspberries looks like :)

( Yum! )

Well, Comic Con in San Diego has come and gone and I have got to get out there one of these years, preferably when I have enough cash to buy all the junk I want! Godzillas! Daleks! Dead kitty dolls! ;) By the time I get out there I'm willing to bet there will be no Stargate franchise left!

Meanwhile, did not get a garden in. The bags of dirt for the garden are lying in the garden, doing a practical thing: killing the crabgrass :) But, the wild raspberry bushes just went gonzo this year. I've spent a few days picking berries and there are still a TON left. It's sorta disturbing that the bushes really aren't being decimated by the wildlife, cuz last year the birds competed with me for berries. This year, I don't know where the birds are, which isn't good. Probably bumped off by all the pesticides and crap people dump in their yards. Anyway, I'll be eating berries the rest of the week for at least 1-2 meals a day cuz I can't let them go to waste. Too good! As long as I make sure I don't eat any of the teensy spiders and green hoppy things that like to lurk on the berries...

Meanwhile, read a really great Stargate Atlantis whump story - Foreign Concepts - at http://x-erikah-x.livejournal.com/148955.html. It's multiple parts so just keep reading :) Definitely recommend it!

I'm sorta going back and forth between Stargate Atlantis and my rediscovery of Kung Fu: The Legend Continues fanfiction (zines) which had a ton of whumpy angsty stories. ANd I keep thinking, gotta finish writing all those SGA whump fic stories I started. Just need to get back into the writing mood.

TV is pretty eh these days. EUREKA is fun, Warehouse 13 is meh, okay, but I'm mostly waiting for Joe Flanigan's guest appearance.

Went to a local library book sale with the idea of buying maybe one or two books and came out with six (they were $1 each) plus two CDs. One by Christopher Franke (who did the soundtrack for the 90s CBS TV series RAVEN, and oh, used to be with Tangerine Dream!) and the other a Tibetan bell meditation CD I have yet to try out, but for a couple bucks....

Weather is dreadful. Hot. Humid. Hazy. It tends to rain or drizzle every single day so the house painting project is in definite arrears. Can't paint till I get a nice dry day for at least 24 hours, and that hasn't been happening. but I guess the weather has been good for the berries... ;)

Besides the memories and the fact they're still enjoyable (watching Kung Fu: The Legend Continues - going through all 4 seasons).

Things that were fun:

No one had cellphones; therefore, kidnapped folk could not be so easily rescued.
Botox didn't seem to exist. People looked REAL.
Blinding white perfect teeth were rare. Now everybody looks like a Barbie doll.
Commercials for NOWHERE MAN with Bruce Greenwood (aka Captain Pike from new Star Trek movie)
SUVs were rare and barely seen. People had ordinary cars!
Phonebooths still existed
You could laugh yourself silly at the women's hairstyles and shoulder pads (although I hear they're bringing those back)
You can see folks who are now on Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis on it in tiny roles. Heh, David Hewlett is sooo young!
Guys (aka men) weren't afraid to show emotion and pat each other on back and hug each other
Watching the computer geek work on an ancient computer is sooooo funny.
Watching news bits from 1993 is just weird beyond belief. Ohmygod, gas is $1.35 a gallon. Heinous!
Oh, and your luxury cars are $15K. Now $15K is bottom price!
Chris Potter. Yum. And Kwai Chang Caine was cooler than I remembered.

I turned on the TV, flicked channels and went, 'whoa, A-Team!" Then I checked Cable's listing and I guess I've sorta died and gone to heaven, well, if I could stay home and watch all this. THIS is WSAH's schedule, every day, Monday-Friday

10am - Ironside
11am - Marcus Welby MD
12pm - The Bold Ones
1pm - Emergency!
2pm - Kojack
3pm - Magnum PI
4pm - Rockford Files
5pm - Adam-12
5:30pm - Dragnet
6pm - Incredible Hulk
7pm - A-team
8pm - Knight RIder
9pm - Airwolf
10pm - Emergency!
11pm - It Takes a Thief

Weekend has Alias Smith & Jones, It Takes a Thief, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Black Sheep Squadron, The Virginian, Laredo, Wagon Train, Night Gallery and more. All TV Guide.com says is paid programming, but TitanTV lists the shows, however, not the specific episodes... darn...

ooh, ah, it's part of RTV - Retro TV Network!! Ah, just started airing here and here's the listing of what they show (and used to show) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_programs_broadcast_by_Retro_Television_Network
9pm - okay, first problem. Not Airwolf but ROckford Files. Hmm, maybe I'll just tape a whole day to see what airs when... back to Kung Fu: The Legend Continues.

Here's a REALLY short video I made of the mammatus clouds this past Friday. I love the birds in the background...

We had some hefty thunderstorms roll through today. In fact, they came just in time for rush hour. Nice. NOT. Luckily I got home before the skies opened up, but wasn't in the house more than ten minutes before the storms really hit and poof, off went the power, again. Sigh.

Anyway, an or so later, some really cool clouds appeared in the sky. Mammatus clouds, which I've never seen in this area before, ever. Anyway, here are some photos. But first, the storm clouds...

( Mammatus shots under cut )

The last few weeks have been... ugh.

First, David Carradine dies. I really enjoyed him in Kung Fu and was shocked. It was a senseless death (sigh) and reminded me too much of when Jon Erik Hexum died (playing with a gun on the set). When it was announced Ed McMahon had passed, I wasn't so shocked because I knew he'd been rather ill, and the same with Farrah Fawcett, but now Michael Jackson? Wow, that came out of the blue! I suspect the stress of the show he was putting on, debt, lawsuits, etc. etc. just killed him. When heard that EMTs had worked on him for 41 minutes (or thereabouts), I said, he's dead. Most CPR does NOT work, contrary to the miraculous resurrections on TV dramas.

Then I go fold the wash, and come back to rumors that Jeff Goldblum (Jurassic Park, Law & Order) had fallen off a cliff in New Zealand while making a movie and was dead. I'm like, oh good grief, who makes up this crap? And oh yes, Harrison Ford's yacht sunk as well and hes' fish food. Geesh, now if they'd said his Piper Cub had gone down, that would have been more believable.

Meanwhile, actor Kevin Spacey laid rest to the Jeff Goldblum rumors on his twitter (which is real, verified, etc.)

http://twitter.com/KevinSpacey
Jeff Goldblum is alive and well. I just spoke to his manager. Stop these stupid rumors.
8 minutes ago from web

Wow, people have just gone nuts, and the idiots are starting rumors.

I took a picture, but fortunately am too lazy to download it and load it up, much to everyone's delight. See, while I was burning my brains out on the Celebrity show with Lou Diamond Phillips (only three more days, then that's it for me and reality shows), the cat caught a mouse and chewed up the body and left its mangled remains on the stair landing. Fortunately, I turned on the lights before I went up, otherwise.... ugh, yuck, I don't like stepping on mice.

And something was outside the house screeching/screaming. I think it was a young coyote as they sound more like hyenas than what you hear on the western movies.

My order from Despair.com arrived, along with the freebie Pessimist's mug! Yes!

It comes in a plain brown cardboard box that has "introducing your latest drinking problem" on one side, and "it makes everything taste bitter" on the side. Snort. They have an all rights reserved disclaimer too. Usual stuff followed by "We have lawyers and aren't afraid to use them. They will do more than hurt your feelings. For real, though." Anyway, nice glass mug with Pessimist;'s Mug in big letters on one side, and half way down on the other side, below a line is "This glass is now half-empty." Ha!

Scraped house in prepration for painting. Saturday was okay, but today was horrid, heat-wise, so I gave up when the sun came around the house, but hmm, think I still sunburned myself in shade. See, the white paint reflects back sun. Accumulated scratches from bushes, bruises and a few odds and ends I'm sure not what they are. Gah, hope this one patch is NOT poison ivy. Hate that.

Meanwhile, must wait several days for biopsy to see if tumor is malignant or benign. I took the dog to the vet and he had a bump on his head, which i was thinking, hmm, cyst. At first I thought, reaction to tick bite so gave it some time to subside but it didn't. He's got a lot of fur so it's not visible. Only found it with fingers. So, with heartworm tests, pathology stuff, my income tax refund, which just arrived, evaporated. Never fails./

Finished the book "Burn Unit: Saving Lives After the Flames" by Barbara Ravage, which is a fascinating non-fiction book on how burns are treated, and what happens during victim's time in burn wards, plus a nice section on the infamous Cocoanut Grove fire, which (as many disasters are prone to do) helped improve burn medicine.

And in opening up a can of chicken for the cat, sliced my finger open (and minimally did the thumb too, I discovered). Doesn't look like it needs stiches but gotta see when I last had a tetanus shot...But at least the cat ate the echicken. He's so finicky! Oh yes, don't shake finger to see if you got water off, cuz that just splatters blood all over the sink and wall. Ack.

Is this just not incredible??

A quote.... "

At the center of a new image made by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory is a very young and powerful pulsar, known as PSR B1509-58, or B1509 for short. The pulsar is a rapidly spinning neutron star which is spewing energy out into the space around it to create complex and intriguing structures, including one that resembles a large cosmic hand." Rest of article at http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090403181503.htm

Cuz neither Harper's Island (CBS) nor Southland (NBC) look appealing enough to watch 'em all the way through. Besides, gotta put the dishes away.

Anyway, plotting. On the garden. I ripped out the old one and can reseed with grass or.... well, I'll just be feeding wildlife if I put in tomatoes, etc. What would be good plants that will attract butterflies, but that deer and raccoons won't eat? For Northeast US. I'd love to plant these orange butterfly plants that used to grow wild in the field, when we had a filed, before it yuppified into MacMansion type houses.

Definitely need plants that squirrels do NOT eat! ;)

Well, cleaning up the yard has turned my batch of 8+ squirrels into more like half that amount, and only one fat one is really brazen enough to be hanging out there WAITING for me to put birdseed in. Y'See, the bush/tree that was dense and big is now not so dense and much smaller. Yew can take a hacking. But, I suspect they'll all eventually come back once they realize the chainsaws are not coming back. Maybe the loppers, but not chainsaw...

Got vinegar in m eye while cleaning some green mildew off outside of house. I could have used water, but vinegar kills any reappearance, doesn't hurt the bushes, although the eye felt like AIEEEEEEEEE! and I was up a ladder when that happened. Fortunately I didn't become a DIY casualty and got off ladder quickly, ran inside and rinsed out eye and was, well, fine. Phew. It rained today, so that batch of wall will not smell like a salad ;)

Think I have all my gunk together for taxes. I'm still leery about efiling. call me paranoid, but my credit card company issued me a new card cuz in one of the rare times in which I ordered online, the merchant got hacked. I saw no sign of hacking (I fanatically track all charges) but better safe than sorry.

Oooh, second to last E.R. is on. I would have watched it a lot longer had Noah Wylie been there all the time.

There is a plus side to this March madness basketball gunk - I watched a Supernatural, am watching ER, and guess I can watch an Stargate movie or two on Friday since Flashpoint isn't on, but I do miss Flashpoint, but not as much as I miss Stargate Atlantis (whine whine whine, would I like some cheese with that??) ;)

Hmm, I have this desire to search the web for a Jello brain mold. I know I saw one somewhere....

This is your cellphone on cold wash/rinse cycle, with bleach.... Well, it's actually mine, but let this be a warning to everyone! ;)

Now, the little thing no longer vibrates, but the picture comes up like this here and now. Also, if I leave the battery in, and leave it on for hours, I'm sure it'll catch fire or explode as it was getting warm (ooh, a MacGyver handwarmer!) It can provide some amusement when I'm totally bored and I figure out how to dispose of it properly.

Anyway, is the photo not neat? I mean, it looks like a nice cloud pattern. Oh wait, like that Outer Limits episode with the dust creature that lived in the vacuum cleaner!!

Well, even though I now have a nice new pretty pink cellphone, I had to check out the other one, which has dried out. So, plugged in the battery. It's alive! Well, the screen flashes ghostly images and it's on constant vibrate now. Otherwise, does nothing else except vibrate. I suppose it could catch on fire if I left it on long enough. Glad I bought a replacement now.

Yeah, they tell you not to do this, but not really, but there's no warning in the book for ... running your cellphone through the washing machine. I guess I'm fortunate it started clunking in the dryer and then I found, vibrating (which it doesn't do) and the screen flashing like it's possessed. yanked out battery. Nope, dead Jim. Ran off to Best Buy, replaced with the new pink LG Flare (which is quite pretty) and transferred all my $/time over to the new phone.

Now, to choose a ringtone. Ohmygawd, they've got Stargate Atlantis, MacGyver, Chips, Avengers! But sniff, no Flashpoint, Adderly, Night Heat... OOh, they have Flipper, but must think about THAT blaring out when the phone rings... Hmmm....Nah. Oooh, Gilligan's Island (do you detect a theme here?)

Decisions, decisions...

A couple signs of the impending apocalypse...

Jif peanut butter. It used to be you'd tell folk how tasty your food was, now theyr'e telling you won't get poisoned. Seriously. Just saw an ad about how 'safe' it was to eat. (Never mind that it's the 'industrialized' (gack) stuff that's got the salmonella). Ohmygosh, the government is twittering! Yes, went to their FDA site and you too can now get tweets about bad food! http://twitter.com/fdarecalls. Jus thope they're not as prolific as Wil Wheaton. I had to un-follow Mr. Wheaton cuz I'd check my twitter when I got home from work and find myself buried under just his tweets.

Dollhouse. Okay, I know lots of folk think Joss Whedon is IT, but after watching two episodes of this show, despite liking the actors, I don't think I'll ever go back again. Last Friday's episode in which the main character was programmed into - face it, a live blow-up sex doll for a client - was distasteful. Okay, yes, sure, she killed the SOB who hunted her (and good grief, that plot point was so transparent it was ridiculous) so she's reclaiming whatever, but it doesn't make up for the fact that this show treats women (as the male dolls aren't seen doing much at all from what I can see) as definite objects.

Remaking 80s movies - just go here -http://www.cracked.com/article_16665_5-upcoming-remakes-80s-movies-that-must-be-stopped.html - one's already in the theater, and alas, doing well, so that means they'll keep at it! Nooooooooooooo!

But on the other hand...

http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/ - a neat blog on grammar. Some fanfic writers could definitely use it, and come to think of it, a couple local newspapers could too! ;)

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/11/09/60-beautiful-examples-of-night-photography-2/ - Beautiful Examples of Night PHotography - and wow, they are, and they have more galleries just like this.

Bored? Shoot some sheep! http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/sleep/sheep/reaction_version5.swf - it's a game, of course ;)

Help a hedgehog - http://www.sttiggywinkles.org.uk/

Anyway, got one of those today, in fact, from Haagen-Daaz, the ice cream folk. Now their stuff is great - but incredibly fattening - and today an email came with new flavors and oh, look, you can punch in the flavor, your zip code, and voila, find out where to buy it!

http://haagendazs.com/flavor_finder/default.aspx

so I go, oooh.... Baileys Irish Cream ice cream! What? I gotta leave the state to buy it?! And I click flavor after flavor (the more exotic interesting one) and well, no one locally stocks it. Bummer :(

Meanwhile, read in the news that two nuclear submarines ran into each other. HOW can you run two subs together, well, unless they're plastic toys and you're re-enacting an Irwin Allen scifi show... ??? Love how this happened about ten days ago but it only broke the news today...

Oooh.

Variety reports today that the A-Team movie is going ahead, but “Fox has struggled to find a way to exploit the branded TV show while avoiding the series' campy tone”. But… but… but that’s what made the show so appealing! The campy, cheesiness of it all! Also, “Carnahan and the Scott brothers say they will use the original premise of the series as the template for an action film. In the original, four Vietnam vets convicted of armed robbery escape from military prison and became do-gooder mercenaries. The Middle East will replace Vietnam as the place the four did their tour of duty, but Carnahan said the origin story is the jumping-off point.” That all makes sense, since if they were Viet Vets, they’d be using AARP to cover their medical bills ;) But visions of the travesty that was “Miami Vice” still dance in my head. I just wish folks would stop re-imagining (their weasel word for ‘duh, let’s just redo this thing as it worked well two decades ago cuz we can’t think up original ideas’) tv shows into movies.

Wait, wait, I have an idea. ABC is resurrecting “V”, and now Fox is talking A-Team as a movie. Let’s do a TV movie – “The V Team”! Yes, it’s all about a bunch of aliens on another world who have survived some dreadful war, come back home, find metal munching moon mice have devoured their homes and bank accounts, so now travel the planet in a souped-up Winnebago-type vehicle, helping the downtrodden with whatever their problem is. Since the Stargate Atlantis cast is free, I vote that Joe Flanigan play the lead alien, Jason Momoa can be his sidekick (with more dialogue than in SGA), David Hewlett can play the slightly unstable character (since Hewlett can do that soooo well) and Rachel Luttrell can play the real brains behind the team ;)

Yeah, it was a boring day, stuck at work, snow, sleet, rain, now a yard of growing slush… Hmm, maybe this is how people in Hollywood get ideas for shows??? ;)

Yes, couches DO eat things. I was looking high and low for a small LED flashlight I'd gotten a while back. So, decided to take apart the couch (since it was messy from cat, dog, etc. being all over it) and lo and behold, the flashlight! Yes!

Meanwhile, thanks to MoRyan over the Chicago Tribune... In the Christmas episode of CBS' Big Bang Theory, Sheldon was bestowed with a dirty napkin - but it had been autographed by Leonard Nimoy. Visit http://trekmovie.com/2009/01/23/big-bang-theory-nimoy-napkin-auctioned-off-this-weekend/ for the full details, pictures and videos. The video of Sheldon realizing just what he has is priceless beyond belief. Anyway, the actual napkin (which Nimoy really signed) is now up for charity auction. You can view th4e vid below too.

And does your car, uh, cough, 'put out'? It does if you read the instructions for this car at http://twitpic.com/16c6j. Thanks to the Wailing list twitter for that gem :)

Ouch. Just read on Broadcasting & Cable that General Electric posted a 44% drop in 4Q results (which is better than some). GE is the parent of NBC Universal, and in turn, Sci Fi Channel is owned in there somewhere...

And, Stargate Universe spoilers, so they're under the cut in case you don't want spoilers...

( Stargate Universe spoilers )

Well, I heard Alaska was warmer than here (Northeast U.S.) today! Anyway, a shot I took at an intersection (through the windshield, hence th blue tone), waiting for the incredibly long light to change. Just a small collection of pigeons gathering together for warmth. I've noticed they like to perch en masse on particular light poles on the highway. Hawks like to sit on some too!

Since I had the day off, and it was snowing, and the roads were slick, I stayed home and tossed food on and off to the birds, and went through a stack of TV Guides and Entertainment Weeklys that had accumulated on a chair (to one of those dangerous stacks that if it falls, could sever a toe, or at least mash it). Anyway, found out there is an animated series called Penguins of Madagascar (yes, from the Madagascar movies) coming up. It premieres in March on the Nickelodeon channel. And Christopher Gorham (whose character Henry once dated Betty on Ugly Betty) will have his own show called Harper’s Island which debuts on CBS on April 9th. Regrettably, most of the cast is young and will be bumped off when the series concludes when the 13 episodes run out. It’s about young people at a weeklong wedding party in which people get bumped off by a serial killer. Guess someone was pissed off about not getting an invite. Think the most interesting looking one is Castle (debuts March 9th on ABC) which stars Firefly’s Nathan Fillion, about an author whose murder books are being copied by a real life murderer. And Cupid is being redone over at ABC, and my hope is that with that being redone, they’ll repeat the original one with Jeremy Piven, but most importantly, with Joe Flanigan! Otherwise the first quarter season (no other way to describe it these days) looks, eh, meh, nothing too exciting.

But best yet, got into a cleaning mood, which also included the computer, and I went, hmm, what’s this folder marked “SGA stories to read.” The motherlode! I’d saved a bunch of Shep whump stories onto the hard drive and hadn’t read them yet. Yes, Stargate Atlantis still lives! Well, at least in fanfic. I also found another folder full of LJ stories I’d just saved the story off, to read/print later and comment on. Oh, have lots of feedback to leave.

Meanwhile, Flashpoint seems to be doing pretty good. The CTV ratings were the highest ever. Full article at Canada Newswire. The better the rating on both sides of the border, the more chance of a third season and ooh, maybe DVD sets!

And I mostly spent the weekend shoveling the driveway. Was out at midnight last night. Dog insisted on going out, so I brushed aside one spot, then just kept going. And did it again tonight when it got dark. It seems easier when it’s dark, because maybe I just don’t see HOW much snow I really have to shovel!

Aw.... :( We'll never heard those words again. Bob May, the actor who played the robot on LOST IN SPACE, died of congestive heart failure on January 18th in Lancaster, CA. He was 69 years old. An obit can be found at http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090119/asp_en_tv/obit_may.

Wow, today was a bad day for a couple of folks.

Patrick McGoohan, known to millions for his PRISONER series, or SECRET AGENT MAN, died today at age 80 after a short illness. I'll always remember him as the brusque Scottish animal doctor in THOMASINA, one of the best flicks ever to come out of Disney, which I adored watching cuz it had Siamese cats in it, but wow, I just through McGoohan was the cat's meow (I was a kid, and that was the term) ;) Anyway, very sad to hear that.

And Ricardo Montalban passed away at age 88. Most folks will probably know him best for FANTASY ISLAND, but I'll always remember "Fine Corinthian leather!" in some car ad he did, but I also remember seeing him in lots of older movies. That is, when they showed older movies. Now I gotta watch Turner Classic Movies to see 'em.

Sigh...

Yes, the power company killed the cable box. Don't know how, and it doesn't speak well of the integrity of the box itself, but several minutes after the second showing of Stargate Atlantis ended, the TV went wonky, fuzzyish- not the TV, the VCr, the DVR, nope, spend far too much time checking, which left the box. So I had to call cable about it (and you know how that goes - you're on hold so long you start falling asleep or forget why you're on hold). They couldn't fix it from their end so I had to drive all the way down (ack, on a Saturday morning, hideous traffic), stand in line, get new box, drive home, plug it in, wait wait wait and then "i'm sorry, but this box is not authorized." Gah! So I had to call them, get on hold again for a long time, and then they finally connected and activated it. Ah, cable again, only wow, there's really not much of a rush to watch anything.

Wraithfodder

Apparently they sacked/shed/fired/laid off, choose your moniker. A bunch of folk who work at LJ no longer do. It's either 20 out of 28 gone, or a "dozen or so", depending on the source.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10132684-2.html said yesterday "Social-media pioneer LiveJournal is the latest company to announce a round of layoffs, trimming down its employee head count in its San Francisco and Moscow offices. A statement from the company came after a rumor on gossip blog Gawker suggested that a shocking number of LiveJournal employees--20 out of 28--had been cut. LiveJournal clarified that it was "about a dozen" cuts, amounting to about a fifth of the company."

So, anyway, this might explain the 'hiccups' LJ has been experiencing.

Now I'm sitting here, going sheesh, bad enough AOL toasted my CSI site. Still haven't found a new home for it yet, but I love Livejournal cuz of all the folks on it and the sharing and fanfic and pictures and just fun. Anyway, I sure as heck don't want to lose my journal, which now makes me think... HOW can I back up the entire journal? Anybody done it and have recommendations? I'm sorta leery about downloading software I don't know (plus I have Vista). And, when you download the journal, does it save comments? And is there a way to mirror a LJ elsewhere (and does it bring over comments, too?)

Yeah, I'm a neophyte at this stuff. I prefer writing entrise and torturing, er, playing with my Stargate Atlantis action figures (who, by the way, had a simply terrible time tonight as I write a new story *cough*)

Thanks!

....that I just spent half an hour watching Snickers ads on YouTube, and farting chipmunks? Oh gawd, that last video (an ad for an air freshener) was an absolute scream.

If I had access to YouTube at work, I'd be doomed! ;)

And this is where I want to be... courtesy of luckier folk who post these on YouTube...

Ah, to win Powerball...

...When you, hey, what's on this tape that's been gathering dust *cough gag gough* under the TV? Why, it's a CSI promo on some semi-insipid talk shows (ack, gag, THE VIEW!) with Jorja Fox, Marg Helgenberger and George Eads. Before Jorja left the show, etc. Interestingly, a talk show called "Ali and Jack" had the BEST interview - long and they let the actor talk about the show and not stupid stuff (like The View) but that show is long gone, I think...

....But, found another tape with some scribbling and popped it in. Oh ha! It's an ad for Stargate Atlantis "Epiphany" with a VERY short intro by Joe Flanigan. Must transfer this to DVD for posterity :) And some tapes are unmarked, so I must speed-search through 'em to see what they are. I've found a few gems that way.

Since there's nothing really on TV this weekend due to the T-day holiday, I can go through all these old tapes. Wonder if there's a place, besides the trash, that will accept stuff you tape off TV (well, for tv shows I taped)...

Story originally found by

nebbyjen - just an incredible story, and it happened in Denver, Colorado and even got picked up by the Sydney, Australia newspaper:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/glean-times-call-for-desperate-measures/2008/11/25/1227491548629.html

EXCERPT:

GLEANING is as old as the Bible and as new as the economic tidal wave that has broken across the United States. It is the practice of gathering by hand the crops left in paddocks after harvest.

On a small family farm in Colorado on Saturday 40,000 people showed up to scour the fields for onions, potatoes, beets, pumpkins and carrots.

Joe and Chris Miller expected 5000-10,000 people. Instead, the first cars arrived at their 240-hectare property near Platteville, 50 kilometres north of Denver, before dawn. By 8.30am the makeshift car park was full. The queue for "hay ride" carts to the fields quickly grew to 30 metres wide and 100 metres long

---------------
Gotta admit it's an incredibly 'feel good' story, but also a really sad one to see that many people show up looking for food.

Can't get Sheldon from BIG BANG THEORY on Stargate Atlantis since that show is toast, but hmm, David Hewlett is free, has a SAG card. Oh, he'd be perfect as say, Sheldon's uncle!

Meanwhile, check out the cool meteor footage from Saskatchewan (Canada)

Well, darn, and I was just thinking about him last week wondering if Kim was still in NYC...

( Kim Chan dies )

Well, I suppose I could have filled out the surveys, but in the end it would be rather obvious I had no idea what I was talking about.... the 4gig iPod was what you got for filling out a survey on NPT on rigs (aka, non-productive time on automated oil rigs). Since I have no oil rigs, the questions got... confusing. Secondly, another trade paper wanted me to tell them all about managing ad sales on cable television. Alas, just a mere viewer, so there's $100 I can't grab. Darn.

Meanwhile, finished the book Head Case, which was definitely a fascinating study of brain injuries, traumatic and otherwise. Apparently there are some states which suck in treating injuries, and others which excel. And when I returned the book to the library, I saw the spider book back on the shelf (what? nobody wants to read about creepy crawlies so close to Halloween?) and then spied Manic, a book on bipolar disorder, so since I seem to be on an odd run of reading books on brains, I grabbed it, as well as Bastard Tongues, what appears to be a fascinating look into language differences.

Gonna fiddle with Filezille tonight to download websites AOL is gonna trash (I realized I've been using their websites since... oh, 2000? long time!)

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wraithfodder

September 2017

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The Oscars
This and that, books, music, TV, fanfiction, etc.
Cough, hack
This and That
Veterans Day
Important Info on H1N1 Flu
How to clean your PC's (or laptop's) screen
Dinner
Ah, the joys of summer... sorta
The joy of old TV shows
Ohmygawd!
Video: Mammatus clouds
Look what the thunderstorms left!
And the world has gone insane. Really, it has...
Aw, kitty left me a present
Despair!
The weekend
Very cool outer space pulsar picture from NASA
Sitting here plotting
This and that
This is your cellphone....
It's alive!!
I'ts dead, Jim!
End of the world, plus other stuff (cuz it's cold and rainy outside)
Ever receive an email that makes you go ARGH!?
First "V", now "The A-Team" and "Stargate Atlantis" :>
It's TRUE what they say about couches!
How cold is it?
TV, Buried Stargate Atlantis stories and snow, snow and more snow
Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!
Rest in Peace
It's dead, Jim
The hubbub over Livejournal
Is it sad....
It's cold outside (really, it is)...
You know the videotape is old ...
Gleaning
Oooh, there's an idea
Kim Chan, 1915-2008
Darn, $100 and an iPod down the drain

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My brain hurts until I can figure out what I'm doing ...

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