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...

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...

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

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

for a complimentary cleaning.

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... ;)

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.

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 )

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.

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.

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! ;)