Having already posted a number Christmas-related pictures from the apartment in Brighton, MA, it only seemed proper to do the same for Christmas in Durham, NC.
RANDOM
And now I'm off for Christmas present wrapping. Happy Christmas Eve, all!
24 December 2006
Christmas in pictures
22 December 2006
furries ...
In response to the fashion sense of a woman I saw on the T today ...
The hat was just like that one, and this woman was also wearing a furry vest and fur-lined suede leather boots.
Fashion lesson, children: wearing fake fur may be gauche, but wearing real fur is callous and disgusting. Just don't do any of it; there are so many other textures out there, you won't get bored if you avoid the fur.
End of lesson.
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P.S. Yes, I know what actual "furries" are, but the title seemed nonetheless appropriate.
Sesame Street religion
[Rather condescending] season's greetings from some puppets at Belief.net.
Yeah. I just don't know what they were thinking. This is more what I would expect to find in my inbox from Fandango.com.
ready to go
A is for Amy, who fell down the stairs. B is for Basil, assaulted by bears.
I woke up at 5:00, as per the usual, and had a cup of milk with a small carrot-cake muffin for breakfast while watching an episode of Forever Knight. And also while packing, and unpacking, and packing again.
Now I'm at the office, and Manuela and I just came back from a Dunkin' Donuts run. Usually, I would have already gone with Sharon (by 8:30 at the latest), but she's already on vacation--and has been since Wednesday. Actually, there are quite a few people missing around here.
I wrote out some rather brief cards to my coworkers when I first arrived, but I don't want to put them in the mail folders yet, as I mean to go and get some Hershey's kisses during my lunch break, which I will then affix to the envelopes (somehow). The cards are very me, an Edward Gorey assortment in stark black-and-white, red, and green. I'm fairly certain that some of my coworkers won't know what to make of them, but I hope they don't find them offensive. At the very least, the included chocolate will keep them from being offensive to anyone's sensibilities.
Having forgotten to print out my flight itinerary previously, I did so after the card-writing. It seems that my flight was originally meant to take off at 6:30 P.M., but will now be leaving at 7:20 P.M. Oh, well. I'm still scheduled to get in to Raleigh/Durham before 10:00 P.M., so I guess that should please me well enough.
Ooh. Two checks today (only, technically, I'm not allowed to bank one of them until the 29th). Kind of annoying, but still very nice. I didn't deposit last week's check either, so I'll still be able to deposit two this afternoon and leave the third alone until I return.
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From Netflix, I received the first two discs of Avatar: The Last Airbender. I watched the first disc all the way through, hoping it would improve with familiarity, but it's really not that good (for anyone out of middle school). It has its funny moments and inside subtle jokes that adults can appreciate, but it just couldn't hold my interest for more than a few minutes at a time. I think I was also turned off by the fact that it's American animation with aspirations to anime, a trait that just doesn't work for me. So I've knocked the remaining discs from my queue.
It is fortunate that I have so many new DVDs to watch while Netflix is being disappointing.
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And I forgot to pack Emilio. Again. Sad.
21 December 2006
3x Thursday: A Little Help
I am not as ambitious as Melissa, and cannot come up with thirteen things of a single topic in a day's blog entry. Instead I'll do this.
1. Do you believe there's such a thing as a chemical imbalance? Do you think that treating these problems with drugs is a good thing? Why/why not?
Yes, on both accounts. I have had family and friends who suffer from depression attributed to chemical imbalances. Without the drugs, they would fall apart to the point of dysfunction each and every day. My mother has no thyroid. She needs to take prescription drugs so that her body may accomplish what a body with a healthy thyroid would do on its own. It should also be said that being without a thyroid (or an over-active thyroid) affects not only your physicality but also your mental functions as the chemicals go to all parts of the body, including the brain.
I'm not sure what you intend by the word "good"--I would say that it's good that people can now do for themselves what was never even in the realm of possibility half a century ago. My great grandmother spent the better half of her life in an asylum due to any number of mental problems (and probably thyroid dysfunction, too), because no one knew what to do for her. My mother doesn't have to suffer the same thing because she can take drugs for her problems. Yes. I call that good.
2. What about drugs for brain-related stuff like depression? Do you think one should be able to get over it themselves, or do you think sometimes we all need a little help, and sometimes we need meds for a while?
I don't believe there's an all-inclusive answer to this question. Anything brain-related should be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. Prescriptive drugs will help some people some of the time. Sometimes just exercise will help. Sometimes turning to religion helps. But then sometimes nothing will help an individual. Don't get me wrong. I don't think anti-depressants and anti-psychotics should be given out like M&Ms, but I disagree wholeheartedly with those who would discount them entirely.
3. Whom do you turn to when you have emotional crisis? Why?
It might be a lazy cliche, but "I get by with a little help from my friends"--and when I'm done pouring my heart out to whomever, I sit down and write my reflections. Writing is a very therapeutic activity for me.
Bonus Question: Are you ready to deal with Christmas? Will you be happy or sad when the holidays are over?
I know this was meant for the comment section on the source site, but I may as well go on, right?
I'm nearly ready for Christmas to be here, though I'm still not entirely convinced that it is nearly here. I'm in Boston, and it's been unseasonably warm here for the past three months; I think we've only had two days where it flurried a little. I suppose I'll have a bout of sorrow after the day passes, but it probably won't hit me until January is underway. Mostly, I'm looking forward to the after-Christmas sales.
binging on life
Eat a live toad the first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.Unknown
"Participants must promise that they will try really really hard to update their web sites every day from December 1, 2006, to January 1, 2007. With holiday obligations, this realistically means you might post a minimum of 20 entries for the month." - Holidailies
So, counting this as the twenty-first post of the month, I can at least be proud that I've reached the minimum for Holidailies. Excellent. Though I'll probably end up dropping off the blog-map once I get to North Carolina.
And I'm leaving tomorrow night. I still haven't really packed anything, though most of what I intend to pack is sitting on top of my suitcase on the floor by my bed.
I think I might splurge for a cab from work tomorrow afternoon. It's not that I won't have enough time if I go by T; I just don't feel like dealing with the crowds of people, which are likely to be akin to the ones I encountered at Thanksgiving. It took me two tries to get on the red line, and another two tries to get on the silver line. A maddening human sardine experience. No, thank you. Not again. Not right now.
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There was another box from Amazon waiting for me in the vestibule when I came home yesterday evening. It was a Christmas present from my friend Sue, the third and final set of DVDs from Forever Knight.
After opening it, I decided to follow my own plan and take pictures around the apartment--of the presents I've received, our decked-out Christmas tree, the weird little ornaments I bought at Target. I was uploading the pictures to my Flickr account when Michelle came home from work.
She went on a hunt in her room for the final episodes of Witch Hunter Robin; because I've had two copies of the final disc sent to me from Netflix, and neither of them has worked (the first was cracked down the center and completely unplayable, and the second could only play the first two episodes on the disc because the remainder was damaged too much). So Michelle burned those to CD for me (remarkably good quality, too), and I watched half of the first episode on the disc--until I decided that I would be clever and save the rest for tomorrow night when I'm sitting around Logan.
I also watched the first three episodes of Forever Knight Season Three, but fell asleep during the fourth one, waking up around 3 A.M. to the glow of the main menu screen. Turning off the television, I went to my laptop and checked my mail.
Arkaidy had posted an additional chapter to "Across Time"--one of the links I have in my "Favourite Fanfiction" in the sidebar--which I then proceeded to read until about 3:45 A.M. It was an interlude to explain the survival of Ares, Hercules, Zeus, and a few of the other gods into the present (because, if we follow a certain element of canon, the gods should fade out and die--but they don't, and Arkaidy has a decent explanation for their continuation).
Actually, the godly come-back makes sense to me because of "Yes, Virginia, There Is a Hercules"--a modern day episode where Ares and Strife show up at the end. So, surely, Ares has to survive in some way; and Strife has to be resurrected after his death-by-hind's-blood ... somehow.
But I shouldn't have read it last night. After I finished reading, getting back to sleep was nearly impossible. And when I did go to sleep, my dreams were vivid and strange and all too real. Actually, I sort of wish one of them had been real. I was enjoying it until my consciousness went, You know this is a dream. This would never happen. Being a conscious dreamer sucks sometimes.
When my alarm went off I didn't really hear it until forty minutes later.
20 December 2006
present? presents! ... and our tree and its ornaments
I said I would take pictures, and so I took pictures. And this is the rather pathetic fruit of my efforts ("pathetic" being in reference to my nonexistant picture-taking skills, not the items in the pictures themselves)--but you get the idea. Click the little babies for a larger view.
I got a haul: a pretty card from the 'rents; a DVD player, also from my folks; a Venetian mask; Forever Knight Part III from Sue; and Fables, Nick of Time, and Serenity from Andrea.
TREE!
These are mostly blurry, but still pretty.
FREAKY PENGUINS!
My sped penguin ornaments--so weird, so retarded, so perfectly cute.
MORE ORNAMENTS!
Again with the blurry, but some of them are okay.
And that's all for now folks!
not a moment too soon
Yesterday morning I was writing about my issues with Beta Blogger; and, ironically enough, yesterday night Blogger suddenly announced the end of calling this new version "Beta." It doesn't really change any of the complaints I have with the system, just the name--but they're making it out to be a very big deal, kind of forcing people into making the transition.
I'm just as happy I decided to go ahead with it beforehand; I'd feel very irritated if I hadn't done so of my own volition, and were now being coerced into the change.
Among other changes (because, while I'm at it, why not?), I added new things to the sidebar--a task which swallowed up the better part of last night. There's a short list of some of my favourite fanfiction (the ones I could track down, anyway), and a rather long list of most recent music artists heard on my iPod and iTunes (an idea I borrowed from Geoff's sidebar, a list which he calls "Playing On Myne Ipod"). More will be added to each list as whatever it is occurs to me; and, potentially, more kinds of lists will be added to the sidebar as they occur to me.
In terms of music, I found that Wikipedia was the most useful source for locating official musician and band websites. Google helped, too.
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"Movies you enjoy watching most this month" is today's Holidaily prompt, but I feel like I've already gone into this before.
Though I make fun of them to no end, I enjoy the classic Rankin & Bass Christmas productions (and I've definitely addressed them before).
A Garfield Christmas Special
A Charlie Brown Christmas
The Santa Clause ... Yes, it's Tim Allen. Yes, he's kind of awful. No, I just don't care (though, I refuse to watch any of the sequels).
I also used to love Benji's Very Own Christmas Story, but I haven't been able to find it in my parents' video collection after the several moves they've made in the past six years.
There are probably others that I'm not thinking of right now, but I might edit this post later to include them. Oh, yeah. And I'll probably sit down to The Nightmare Before Christmas at some point this holiday season, as well.
The one movie that is always brought up as a Christmas classic, and that I've never watched from beginning to end, is It's a Wonderful Life--a fact that makes me feel like one of the dopey officers from The Ref who accidentally records the film over the police evidence. But it's so damn long, and I've seen the "never-been-born" premise done in so many other shows and films, that I don't think I'm missing too much.
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I think tonight will be a digicam night--of Christmas-y picture-taking. Our tree, the freaky penguin ornaments that don't make sense, and my holiday acquisitions (of which I have a fair few already).
19 December 2006
only partially founded fears
I had been toying with the idea of switching entirely over to Beta Blogger. I had messed around with the click-drag design before, and I just wasn't fond of the "fixed" elements on the page--the boring banner, for one thing. Also, the click-drag method is very archaic and giving me flashbacks of the ever awkward Geocities.
But I really liked the expandable/collapsible archives in the side-bar, and I couldn't get that with the older template. So this morning, with much trepidation, I saved my original template and made the switch. And after doing some web-searching for hacks and code, I've finally managed to make my journal look (sort of) the way it originally was--only with the excellent archiving.
The header was a bit more of a finagle, and I was on the right track in my touch-and-go trial-and-error editing, but I became impatient with myself and found some excellent directions for tweaking the code in another blog.
I still haven't got the widths of the post section and the side bar where I want them, but they're close enough to satisfy me for now.
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When I was shuffling through some papers in one of my desk drawers yesterday, I finally located my invitation to the BU Holiday Party "Evergreen Dream." One of my coworkers has been urging me to come along since last week; and I had wanted to say that I would, but I thought that I had accidentally thrown the postcard in the bin. Actually, this coworker suggested that I had accidentally tossed it away, but I thought that was rather out of character for me. I never throw anything away, and my desk stands as a monument to this fact--or, at any rate, the clutter piled a foot high on a back corner of my desk should be evidence enough.
So I'll be going the party after work for food and beverages. I'm looking forward to shameless noshing ... and to not having to make my own dinner tonight.
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Torchwood's "Out of Time" was, as predicted, finished downloading when I arrived home last night. It has to be one of the funnier, and also one of the sadder, episodes to date. I think my favourite segment is when Ianto takes the time-travelers shopping. He's in the middle of explaining the magic of the automatically opening door when one of the ladies exclaims, "Bananas!" in sheer delight. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, bananas completely out-rank the technological advances of mankind.
I totally approve of the plot and character development with the Gwen/Rhys relationship. They just can't stay together, in my opinion--not when Gwen can never tell him anything. Judging by the sneak-peek, next Sunday's episode looks like it's going to up that drama quotient.
My only grudge against this episode was that the writers didn't really let us find out anything new about Captain Jack Harkness. Jack was sitting in a carbon monoxide-filled automobile, and he couldn't share anything about himself with a man who's about to die? I don't know if it's due to something truly complex about the character, or if the writers just don't know what they want his entire back story to be yet. Either way, it was kind of frustrating. He's such a lonely character, and his expression was downright heart-breaking as John Ellis was dying.
18 December 2006
fallen by the wayside
So much for updating this blog every day (the Holidaily mandate--which, well, isn't really much of a mandate when you're doing "Holidailies at Home"). The weekend let any blogging get far and away from me.
Saturday was a good time. There were nine of us, in all, the first arriving around nine o'clock; and I think the last of our guests left around 3 a.m. We had a tree and everything. I clearly drank too much, but well, that's what "Milk and Cookies" is for. And we still have a full bar (plus) left over, so no worries.
Our apartment finally got around to washing and using the glass set that John had given us. It was very classy.
Sunday was a day for vegetating--after the liver-abuse of Saturday night/Sunday morning.
I was able to watch the first two episodes of Arrested Development but the third one is still glitching, so I'll probably have to wait on the torrent for a while. Actually, I was surprised that it let me watch the first two episodes anyway. Usually they're all finicky until the files are fully complete.
Then, I was obsessively checking mininova.org over and over again last night, because Torchwood's "Out of Time" aired at 9 p.m. on BBC Three, and factoring in whatever amount of time it takes for the creation of .avi and .... COFFEE TIME! ... Ahem. As I was saying before the coffee interlude, the episode availability of the torrent is always affected by the air time, the five hour time difference in the UK, plus the time it takes for the creation of the files and their torrents.
I ended up finding the new torrent at around 2130 ET and started it, but it was slow-going since nobody was really seeding it yet. This morning, however, it was going at up to 90 kbps and predicting 40 minutes to go (that was over two hours ago); so it'll probably be waiting for me when I get home. I love new episodes. Can't wait.
We also might be doing some Christmas shopping tonight, which is good since I still want to get a few people gifts.
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What's new with Netflix?
I received Hairspray on Friday and Highlander 2: The Renegade Edition on Saturday. Both of these movies are truly awful, but have some really funny moments and/or characters.
Divine, for one. Who is Divine? A man who chose to look like a very strange woman some of the time (or most of the time), and often worked with director John Waters. I love how (s)he was the mother and the crabby racist TV station owner in Hairspray--though I didn't really make the connection until one of the final scenes when the two characters are yelling at each other, and I noticed the peculiar similarity between their disturbing and unnaturally arching eye-brows.
And I know that Waters is from Baltimore, and that it's his cult-movie trademark to set all of his movies there, but ... Baltimore?
The movie inspired me to download Gene Pitney's "Town Without Pity" ... And, speaking of music downloads (while returning to a favourite subject), John Barrowman has a lot of musicals under his belt (among other things), so I took a lot of those too. And I'm tempted to rent De-lovely again (though I didn't like it very much), just to watch his duet with Kevin Kline on "Night and Day." Maybe I can find the clip on YouTube or something ...
And speaking of YouTube, musicals, and John Barrowman ...
I'm a big fan of that defabricator thing--you know, provided it's being used properly and on the proper people. I also love how he nakedly pulls that blaster out of, hmm, yes, nowhere.
As for Highlander 2, Sean Connery is really the only redeeming part of this movie. His scenes are the most entertaining in the entire film--which doesn't fit into Highlander canon (or reality) in any way. It just doesn't. I realize that complaining about lack of realism where this fandom is concerned is ridiculous to begin with, but they seem to break their own rules. Whereas before, there's some mysticism to the whole immortal business, in this movie they decide that these guys are actually aliens brought to Earth to battle it out until there's only one left.
Umm. Okay. So what about when Connor "died" in the Highlands in the first movie? Did he know he was an alien? Because I didn't get that impression at all. And if the flashbacks in H2 are meant to be after the historic events of the first movie, then why is Ramirez (Sean Connery) still alive? The alien crap just doesn't make sense.
Also, the "modern" setting of this film is 2024, wherin the Earth has been covered by a shield for twenty-five years to protect everyone from the sun's radiation. Only, as it turns out, the shield is completely unnecessary after twenty-five years--except that "there's no way of knowing!"
One, I'm pretty sure that solar radiation is easier to detect than this movie is leading its audience to believe; so the whole idea that "there's no way to be sure" is a load of tripe. Two, if the ozone layer became so depleted that people needed to put up a shield, it wouldn't revitalize in 25 years. It just wouldn't, especially if people kept burning fossil fuel under the shield. The problem wouldn't just happen to fix itself within a quarter of a century, not after thousands of years of damage.
Stupid premise. Stupid attempt at explaining the immortal thing. Poor-man's Jack Nicholson (Michael Ironside) as General Katana (Katana? Really?). Weird porcupine people. Huge deviations from canon.
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And this is the kind of entry you get from me after two days of nothing.
15 December 2006
drenched to the bone every time
The coffee's not quite doing its thing this morning. I suppose that's what I get for deciding to finish watching Doctor Who's "World War Three" after we finished decorating the tree last night. I should've just gone to bed, but I wanted to know how it ended. Well, of course, the Doctor and Rose were going to save the day, but I wanted to know how exactly.
So it was some time past midnight when I went to bed, and I got up at 5 to the sound of Band of Horses' "The Funeral" playing on FNX. That song is growing on me--probably because I've woken up to it three times in the past week. You might think that would be more annoying than anything else; but, no, I'm liking it.
Oh, yeah. We decorated the tree last night after a trip to Target. The loot? Earrings. And retarded made-in-China penguin ornaments. Seriously. These ornaments are probably made by retarded Chinese slave-children in a sweatshop. I think my favourite of the set is "Mr. Penguin molests Mr. Snowman" ... So, yes, we have sexual harassment Christmas ornaments. Yes, they're retarded and poorly put together; but, honestly, they're rather charming for how bad they are.
It was an amusing night of Christmas music, decorating, and ornament interpretation. The lights ... Our Christmas tree has an impossible number of lights on it--700? 900? ("More lights than God" is the phrase we've applied). I forget what the end count was, but it's impressive and a little scary (to me, anyway--I think my one flat mate still believes it's lacking in lights).
And I'm exhausted, but we have a decorated tree, so it's completely worth it.
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And I watched "The Empty Child" and "The Doctor Dances" this morning. I don't care if Jack Harkness is a con man. He's dead sexy. I'd "dance" with him.
That said, I'm going to hold off on watching the rest of the episodes until work is over. I could just sit here with my iPod propped against the monitor, watching television episodes all day, but ... well, I don't want to watch them all at once. There are only thirteen episodes per season, after all. I have to make them last somehow.
14 December 2006
office space
People really need to get out of mine. Part of our office's holiday hijinks is a game called "Guess Who." Players answer lots of questions about themselves, the names are taken away, and everyone has to guess which answers go with which person. One of the questions is about eye colour.
So for the last few days, elderly strangers have been walking into my office, getting up in face, and staring into my eyes. Sometimes squinting beadily. It's disturbing. It needs to stop. I've decided I'm not playing, because there's enough invasion of space going on around here without my getting actively involved. Thanks.
Sometimes my younger coworkers and I pass around funny e-mails and links to amusing web-finds between us. The latest one I received was a video entitled "fruitcake lady" and it's pretty damn funny, so I think I'll share.
I love blunt old ladies. They're hilarious. I want to be a blunt old lady when I'm, you know, old.
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The first and second episodes of Robin Hood finally finished downloading. I've determined that the comedy of the series is built around the absurd and neverending arguments the characters are having every other scene.
Example? Okay, there's a brief scene in the second episode where two of the Sheriff's guards are talking about Robin of Locksley and suddenly come up with the show's namesake:
Guard 1: They should call him Robin of the Wood! (hardi-har-har)
Guard 2: Robin Wood! (duh-huh-huh)
Guard 1: Robin Hood! (ah-ha-ha-ha)
Guard 2: You should tell Sir Guy that one. He'd like it.
Guard 1: I don't want to tell him. You tell him!
Guard 2: No, not me, I don't want to tell him.
Guard 1: Why not?
Guard 2: He might not like it.
And so on.
Yes, it's corny. But it's growing on me.
In other bittorrent news, I hope the first season of Doctor Who is finished by the time I get home. I really want to watch the Captain Jack episodes, and possibly upload them to my iPod as something to entertain me while I'm sitting around Logan Airport next Friday.
13 December 2006
"scared of Santa"
Just remember that "Santa" is an anagram for "Satan."
This was on another Holidaily-person's page, but it is too fabulous not to share. And it reminds me quite vividly of my own Santa-inspired terror.
could live with(out)
Today's Holidaily subject is food that makes the season for you.
For me it's egg-nog and candy canes--and maybe gingerbread, though that's really not mandatory, just pleasant.
I know plenty of people who can't stomach egg-nog, but I've been drinking it since I was a kid (alcohol-free when I was younger, of course--but I enjoy it both ways now), so I guess it grew on me. Last year, John and Rodney came up from New Jersey a few weeks before Christmas, and we made the Martha Stewart recipe for egg-nog.
I had never actually made egg-nog before, having always had it purchased from the market or the closest quick-mart. I had rather doubted I could, or that it must be very difficult. There is actually a segment in the movie The Ref where some woman is complaining to the owner of a small grocery store that they're all out of egg-nog, and the owner suggests that she go home and make some. And the woman is completely flabbergasted and cannot even imagine doing so. I think that scene led me to believe that it must be near-impossible to make one's own egg-nog from basic ingredients. But it actually didn't take very long, and it turned out quite well. Well, quite strong, anyway.
It was over 20 servings and chock full of some different kinds of alcohol. And our apartment managed to drink ALL of it in one evening. Our final judgment on this recipe and its creator was that it mainly tasted of hard liquor, and "Martha Stewart is a boozer."
Candy-canes are a basic mainstay of every Christmas I've ever had. I didn't like mint or peppermint or spearmint, etc. when I was younger, but the other flavours of candy-cane appealed to me very much. I remember being particularly fond of raspberry candy-canes for a really long time. These days I buy a box of the Hershey chocolate-mint candy-canes right after Thanksgiving. And, since I don't eat one every day, those will last me until Christmas. They're awesome. I sometimes dunk them in my coffee and have chocolaty-minty coffee.
Aside from those things, no particular food is expected at my house for the season. We never have a specific dinner that we must have at Christmas--unlike Thanksgiving, which is always turkey at my house. Usually it's cured ham, but even that was never a rule; and I think this year Mum is cooking lasagna with Italian sausage. I'm very much looking forward to it.
Holiday food I would be happier without? Fruitcake. It's horrifying. I don't know anyone who likes the stuff, so I really don't understand why it's such a mainstay at the grocer's this time of year.
12 December 2006
damning the man
When I arrived home yesterday afternoon, there was a box leaning against the front door waiting for me. And another box inside on the mail table near the entryway.
The larger box from outside was a region-free DVD player from my mom and dad. The smaller box was the spatula I had ordered from cooking.com for my mother (free shipping on anything, no matter how small, when you buy with PayPal!)--weird and seemingly gender-stereotyped gift, I know, but she asked for it specifically, so she's getting it.
When I first opened the DVD box, I was a little wary about what I had received (the packaging says Region 1 all over it). But upon closer inspection, I spied a tiny sticker that said the player had been modified to play all regions. Sweet.
So I pulled the plug on my DVD/VCR unit and placed the new--and smaller--unit on top (this situation reminded me of the Foxworthy "you might be a redneck" ramble ... only they're not old TVs, so I don't think it counts--though the fact that they're sitting on top of my micro-fridge might make it count). The new one doesn't have the same hook-up as my Sony, the general single-prong cable plug. It has the old red/white/yellow three-part cable; and, on my peculiar Sylvania television, that connection is at the front rather than the back ... but the cable is long enough, so I had no trouble putting everything where it needed to be. And, having tested on a region four disc and a region two disc, all works splendidly.
Yes, I am no longer restrained by the intentional restrictions of the movie distribution industry, able to watch whatever I want that comes from wherever I want. It's awesome.
I, of course, then proceeded to ogle my Amazon.co.uk wish-list for a good while. Mmm. DVDs.
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Torchwood's "Random Shoes" was so damn sad. And there was not nearly enough Jack! ... And it was just a really, really sad episode. And, without giving too much away about the plot, the vague description of the mystery e-bay bidder makes me think it was Jack (yes, beanie babies habit and all), though that's never actually answered in the plot.
I also began watching the tenth episode of Robin Hood (yes, another BBC production)--began, but didn't finish, because our apartment ordered-in and had fat-sandwiches and fro-yo for dinner. YUM! (What are fat sandwiches? you might ask. They're subs that are stuffed with every bad thing under the sun--fries, chicken fingers, mozzarella sticks, onion rings, etc. If it's fried and awful for you, it can be put on a fat sandwich.)
Returning to the subject of telly, maybe Robin Hood is a tired concept, but it's a pretty damn funny show, actually. I'm just not sure if it's supposed to be funny where I'm laughing. And I still like Torchwood better. And, happily, I've been informed (via comment in this entry) that Torchwood is getting another season! Shows that I love actually aren't being cancelled. It's cause for celebration, I tell you.
To obtain these shows, I've been using iPodnova.net because the files are smaller than they tend to be with other sites I've used, and I can use the videos with iTunes and my iPod. I still haven't managed to get the first or second episodes of Robin Hood to finish; but they're still going, so I'm hopeful.
I'm also downloading the first season of the new Doctor Who, 40 hours to go, and the first season of Arrested Development, which reads that it still has five days to go.
Yes, I'll probably kill my hard-drive one of these days.
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And, ooh! ooh! We have a Christmas tree! It was just delivered by my flat-mate's friend's dad last night, and I'm guessing we'll be decorating it tonight. Very excited.
11 December 2006
blinded by your daylight
I hope "Random Shoes" is finished downloading when I get home. I need my new John Barrowman fix of the week.
Honestly, I don't know what I'm going to do if the show isn't picked up for another season. Cry or something--the "something" probably being pathetically watching the thirteen available episodes over and over again.
And getting the novels from Amazon.co.uk.
And obsessively reading fanfiction (like I'm not already doing that).
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Should I feel guilty about not wanting to exercise with somebody else?
A coworker of mine asked me if I was going to join the university gym this season. I said that I might, and she said she was looking for an "exercise buddy"--you know, the person who's supposed to drag you to the gym even when you don't feel like it.
I was wishy-washy in my response, mainly because I'm not a big fan of exercising with other people. Instead, I asked when she thought she would like to make a habit of going, and she said that she wanted to go from 8 to 9 in the morning.
... *Alarm!* I like getting to work by 7 so I can leave by 3 and get some daylight out of the day, not easily done this time of year in Boston when the days are so short.
I asked if going to the gym after work would be possible, but she said that doesn't work for her because she has class from 6 to 7.
(And if she were like me, and left at 3 every day, that would be plenty of time to exercise before going to class.) I didn't say that, however; I did say that I prefer coming to work earlier.
In the end she just said, "Oh," and left me standing at the mail machine feeling like the most awkward person in the history of ever.
But, when I was thinking on it later over the weekend, I decided that it was just as well. I'm not a social person to begin with--so why should I be a social exerciser? Whenever I exercise with my parents, I end up killing myself trying to "keep up" with them. And when I exercise with people who are less physically fit, I feel like I "dumb down" my own workout to suit them. It just leaves me cranky, and exercise isn't supposed to make you cranky--it's supposed to give you a lift.
Ending conclusion? For the anti-social individual, iPods make better gym buddies than other human beings.
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Several of my parents' college friends and coworkers send out mass-produced holiday newsletters. They're usually poorly formatted, poorly written, and possessing some crappy pixelated border that may or may not suit the season.
I know it's more in-depth than a card, gives you a better idea of what's going on with so-and-so and all their little sos-and-so. But it's kind of peculiar, isn't it?
It's like you have a fan-club and a generator of addresses. And all you have to do is print off all these unpersonalized essays, a sheet or two of address labels, and then it's done. And you didn't have to think about it at all. I know that's also a part of the charm, but it's just so impersonal.
This judgment-call coming from one who rarely (if ever) mails a letter to anyone.
Yes, so maybe so-and-so's crappy newsletter is better than my nothing.
10 December 2006
high and dry
The title is in reference to where the Holidailies hub has left us for today--promptless. I am thus abandoned and neglected, and my topic must fend for itself and decide what it wants to be. My topics are a lot like me, however: indecisive, ever changing, and always procrastinating.
Granted, I've been mostly ignoring the Holidaily prompts, or twisting them to suit my purposes. But I like having that option of ignoring something.
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My morning has been terribly lax. Toast, tea, and milk in bed. And Torchwood.
I was re-watching "Countrycide" this morning, the sixth episode of the series. It's like The Hills Have Eyes, but set in the Welsh countryside--and focusing more on the team-members of Torchwood rather than the crazy rural cannibals. I made some screencaps ... and four icons.
John Barrowman has the best teeth ever. Seriously. The man has perfectly white, straight teeth. And nearly vampiric canines. Just awesome and unbelievable teeth.
I've been downloading songs and bands that have been featured on the show so far, because the music in the first episode inspired me. I think it was Snow Patrol's "Spitting Games" that set me off on the music search. And it just so happens that wikipedia has an episode log for the series, and a music list for each episode. Seventeen songs, fourteen artists, mostly Brit pop. My favourites have been Snow Patrol, Placebo, Hard-Fi, and Mogwai.
Yes, I'm kind of obsessed. There's a new episode airing tonight on BBC Three, and varying reports are calling it "Random Shoes" and "Invisible Eugene" ... I'm inclined to believe the latter, since it's coming from imdb.com (which seems to be a better source for reality than wikipedia--hey, I love wikipedia, but it can be full of crap).
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The shopping update? I've done no holiday shopping this weekend (bad Ri!), online or otherwise. I really must get that act together. And soon.
09 December 2006
what trouble?
Are you blogging to avoid doing something? Release your troubles!
Hmm. Possibile.
When I do, I'm probably blogging to avoid doing ... well, anything productive. To comment, to complain, to share weird things I've found online while avoiding life.
If I'm at home, then I might be blogging to avoid writing, or Christmas shopping, or the weird grayness of reality that sometimes creeps in when my guards are down.
Oh, yeah. I'm also a comment whore, so blogging is clearly a cry for attention, recognition, etc.
When it comes down to it, blogging is just cheaper than therapy (though, granted, Boston University has a fairly progressive outlook, and offers counseling to whoever may need it).
As for specific troubles in need of release, I can't think of anything at the moment. Troubles have a way of blurring on a Saturday morning.
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And rather than trying to dredge up whatever those presently forgotten troubles may be, I'll instead leave off with a passage from Chapter Five of Rice's The Tale of the Body Thief that frequently comes to mind--and no, I don't know why it struck me so much. But it did.
"... 'It was God talking to the Devil and telling the Devil that he must go on doing the job. And the Devil didn't want to do it. He explained that his term had already been too long. The same thing was happening to him that had happened to all the others. God said that He understood, but the Devil ought to know how important he was, he couldn't simply shirk his duties, it wasn't that simple, God needed him, and needed him to be strong. And all this was very amicable.'
'What did they look like?'
'That's the worst part of it. I don't know. At the time I saw two vague shapes, large, definitely male, or assuming male form, shall we say, and pleasant-looking--nothing monstrous, nothing out of the ordinary really. I wasn't aware of any absence of particulars--you know, hair color, facial features, that sort of thing. The two figures seemed quite complete. But when I tried to reconstruct the event afterwards, I couldn't recall any details! I don't think the illusion was that nearly complete. I think I was satisfied by it, but the sense of completeness sprang from something else.'
'From what?'
'The content, the meaning, of course.'
'They never saw you, never knew you were there.'
'My dear boy, they had to know I was there. They must have known. They must have been doing it for my benefit! How else could I have been allowed to see it?'
'I don't know, David. Maybe they didn't mean for you to see. Maybe it's that some people can see, and some people can't. Maybe it was a little rip in the other fabric, the fabric of everything else in the cafe.'
'That could be true. But I fear it wasn't. I fear I was meant to see it and it was meant to have some effect on me. And that's the horror, Lestat. It didn't have a very great effect.' ..." (page 75)
The rest of it is there for clarity's sake, but that's the part that my mind always recalls: That's the horror ... it didn't have a very great effect.
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