Monthly Archives: August 2005

Sooo Sleepy

Posted on by
Reply
Flickr

Katie the Wonder Dog came for a visit last weekend – actually, we had her for 3 nights starting on Thursday.

She took quite a liking to the soft velour cushions on the leather sofa. Yes, we’re quite the indulgent dogsitters when it comes to Katie’s comfort. She just looked so cute curled up into as small a ball as possible, so that she could fit on top of one cushion. We took a lot of pictures, with and without tripods and external flash and photographic whatnottery.

The last night, people in the neighborhood were shooting off fireworks, so she got a little anxious and dogged my steps (heh) late in the evening. Then we went upstairs and got ready for bed. David was already asleep, so I stumbled around a little in the dark before climbing aboard (the bed is kind of high).

HOP! Up came Katie, the surprisingly springy little old Wonder Dog.

PLOP! She curled up on David’s legs. He grumbled a bit in his sleep.

PLOP! She found a slightly more comfortable (and slightly less lumpy) position.

PLOP! She found an even more comfortable spot, stretched out beside me, strategically angled so she could get her belly rubbed.

PLOP! She abandoned the foot of the bed and curled up right in the crook of my arm, just where Stuey liked to curl up. This was the most convenient position of all for belly-rubbing. She stayed like that for a long time.

It’s been almost two years.

So I petted her and rubbed her belly and soon enough it was morning and time to say “go buh-bye in the car” to Katie. We’re already missing the pitter-patter of paws and the clickity-clack of claws. Maybe soon now we’ll get another pet of our own.

This image was sent from Flickr as a blog entry, email or cameraphone image.

Via: Flickr
Title: Sooo Sleepy

By: GinnyRED57

Originally uploaded: 8 Aug ’05, 1.31pm PST

Waiting

Posted on by
Reply

Weather Forces NASA to Delay Landing – Yahoo! News

selfportrait.jpg

I’m trying not to worry, but I’ll be very relieved when Discovery lands tomorrow. The delay today is weather-related, but the insulation material that worked its way loose is still a big concern.

This thumbnail shows astronaut Steve Robinson making a self-portrait with the reflective shield on his helmet during his historic trip to the underside of the Space Shuttle to check the heat shield and remove stray pieces of “gap filler” material.

Like everyone, I hope they all make it down safe.

A Little Behind

Posted on by
Reply

It’s a state of mind and a state of being. I’m always a little (or more than a little) behind.

Would that I had one too, but alas.

There’s a lot going on – new great-niece in the family, more family doings coming up in August and September, meetings and more meetings, and it’s all starting to crowd up on the calendar.

Yikes! Can I take a vacation from all this?

Twin Geeks Go For TAR Gold

Posted on by
Reply

Twin brothers Cameron and Damien Barrett want to make a dream come true. They want to be on 9th (or 10th) season of The Amazing Race. Only hitch in this plan no one has called them back. Yet.

Being identical twins they hope they stand out from the crowd enough to get the prized spot. But, to help things progress they sent in a video, and just started up a blog about their quest.

Hey, I’ll throw in with TV Squad and add my modest Google juice in a good cause. It’s one of my dreams, but these guys have a better chance than most. First, there’s the twin thing. Then there’s the California thing. Then there’s the blogger thing, and finally (and possibly this is the deal-maker) there’s the completely bald thing. This is a look common to TAR racers, from Kevin and Drew to, well, was it Gary or Dave? Finally, don’t forget winners Chip of Chip and Kim, and finally both Uchenna and Joyce. Good luck, guys.

UPDATE: fixed bad syntax. Bad, bad syntax.

Bomp! Amazing Race Season 3 Premiere Tonight!

Posted on by
1

Amazing Race: Season 3, Episode 1

Of COURSE I’ve been catching up on the first 2 seasons of TAR, which have just been re-run on GSN. I’m so happy to finally feel the love for Kevin and Drew (TAR1 fan favorites) and Danny and Oswald (TAR2 fan favorites). Last night was the finale of the second season, which saw Chris/Alex, Tara/Wil, and Blake/Paige battle it out to the finish line in San Francisco. Incidentally, now I finally feel the hate for Taraweasel.

But tonight, we’re finally cooking with gas, because it’s the premiere of the third season. My season. The season when I tuned in on a whim and became instantly hooked, within 5 minutes after the opening credits rolled. The season where I would attempt to look up the flights and routes on SABRE at work the day after each episode, estimating the actual travel date based on information found at TWOP.

I missed the first three episodes, the last of which ends up in a part of England that I visited on my first trip there with Mom (fifteen or so years ago). On a later visit with my friend Christine, I took a walking tour and became fond of the very English pasttime of walking in the countryside. This requires you to navigate footpaths, do your own routefinding, and juggle bus and train schedules in order to reach starting and ending points. When David and I went on our trip to England, I was determined to do some more walking, and fortunately, David loved it too. The uncertainty of finding your way to the next village, and the sense of accomplishment when you actually get there, makes for a very rewarding ramble (and the end-of-day beer or cider tastes even better).

Anyway.

So when the fourth episode started, I recognized the area (Mousehole, near Penzance), and started laughing at how the racers were 1) misprounouncing place names (it’s actually prounounced “Mooz’ul”), and 2) using a shortcut to the next location that was obviously a footpath, and 3)frantically trying to get to a major airport and book flights to another country. Oh ho! A sport that’s already dear to my heart, and it’s on TV! Let’s watch these hapless folks bumble their way around the world, and laugh heartily when they screw up, and cheer when they figure it out!

That’s how it got started. I’ve got several more “new” episodes to watch before I get to familiar territory, and I missed a couple more. I’m happy to get to see more of my favorite team of that season, Ken and Gerard (otherwise known as “Oh Brother,” or “YAAAY!”). I’m also happy to see my least favorite team get eliminated again. That was another reason I loved this show so intensely after just one episode, because the duo that irked me the most that night were out at the end, in a particularly just and satisfying way. Tonight or tomorrow night, I get to see them struggle with a form of transportation, in an incident that became one of the legends of Comedy Gold among Race fans. Oh, boy! I’ve been looking forward to this since I read it in Miss Alli’s recap!

I’m not so happy having to hear Flo screech her way around the back half of the course, but I understand she’s a very nice person in real life.

The theme of this season, as it turns out, was “Animals Is Always Funny” You’ll see why when we get to the finale.

The theme of the fourth season was apparently “Around The World of Poop.”

Yahoo Music Radio

Posted on by
1

Chicago Tribune | Yahoo Wants to Look for Music

Okay, I have a Yahoo address, and I’ve been adding more and more content to “my” Yahoo page. And I like Internet radio, but can’t always play it successfully at work. So I checked out the new music service at Launch.

First of all – ease of use. It’s very easy to start listening, with no firewall problems at work, so that’ll increase the chances that I’ll use it both at work and at home. Second, although I haven’t used the search feature much, I can see that I’ll probably use it as much as iTunes, because it’ll also find free music downloads. Hmm.

Also, I like some of their “preset” stations, like “Cool as Folk.” But the really fun thing is that you can customize your own “station,” and it’s smart enough to figure out from your initial settings what you might like to hear. It’s not unlike the Radio@AOL/Radio@Netscape product, in that you can rate the songs as you hear them and click to purchase them…which I haven’t tried yet, since I think I’d have to download some software. However, you also have the option to SKIP a song and/or artist and click “Never play this selection again. So you can whip through a hell of a lot of music, rating and customizing as you go… and there are links to ratings by other people, and to their personal stations. So here’s my personal station, that I’ll probably be listening to a lot at work:

Radio Red57metoo

Here’s my profile/intro:

Welcome to Radio Red57metoo – electronic eclectica for weirdos with the attention span of a hyper-caffeinated gnat.

If they ever made a movie of my life, this would be the soundtrack. It would totally tank at the box office, and the CD would end up in cut-out bins around the world.

The cool thing is that you can search for artists, rate them highly, and they show up in your personal radio station’s playlist. I’m listening to a song off of Nick Drake’s Pink Moon album, just a few minutes after rating the album highly. Very cool.

The unintended fallout from this? I’ll probably drop my old AOL account at last, and keep only my old RED57 screenname for instant messaging, and move the one mailing list I’ve left subscribed at the old AOL address (HIGHLA-L) over to the red57metoo identity on Yahoo.

This will make my husband David happy, because I’ve been holding out on shitcanning the AOL account for just 1 reason: I like AOL Communicator because its got a link to Radio@AOL, which I used to use a lot. But I can get pretty much the same kind of email from… I don’t know, whatever the Mozilla email client is (David will correct me on this in comments). And Radio@AOL requires that full-boat AOL be up and running in order to link to albums and buy music, while Yahoo is already compatible with iTunes AND free music, as previously stated.

So it’s looking like it’s aloha, AOL, after 10 years.

Now, if I could just figure out how to publish an RSS feed of what I’m listening to on the blog… 😉

Highlander…3 More Times?

Posted on by
2

Highlander: The Source, envisioned as the first of three new films in the popular supernatural franchise, will shoot in Lithuania starting in October, according to an announcement by Davis-Panzer Productions, Sequence Films and Grosvenor Park. Brett Leonard (Lawnmower Man) will direct, with Adrian Paul playing the immortal Scottish swordsman Duncan MacLeod.

Okay, I’m a Highlander fan. I own three (3) little tchotchkes shaped like the famous dragon-head katana: a necklace, a pen, and a rather cool if I do say so letter opener. I’ve blogged before about my HL fan-past. And the word among fans has been going around about this next movie for a while, so this news is not news to me.

And my gut reaction: is an almighty “meh.” I’m just not sure we need to watch this franchise die a slow and painful death (repeatedly, if the 3-movie deal is real).

Yes, I’ll see it, just out of curiousity, but I’ve got a bad feeling about it. My husband David will probably have to be lured with promises of being hand-fed Twizzlers during the show, and at least one damn fine beer at Brass brewpub after.

Although… well, Lawnmower Man was a pretty cool movie, with one pretty cool quote: “I am God here.” David uses that line every time he has to do something moderatorish on one of his mailing lists. So we’ll see how the new guy does with the canon.

The Gays Win

Posted on by
Reply

Chicago Tribune | ‘Welcome to the Neighborhood’: Roll out the unwelcome wagon

Another judge, speaking of the black family, discovers “what nice, pleasant and even well-versed people they are.”

Not nice enough, however, to actually win the house. After rejecting the Koreans (too foreign), the witches (too scary), the stripper (too controversial), the tattoo aficionados (too weird-looking) and the Hispanics (too loud), the judging families are left with two finalists: the black family and the gay family.

To help make the decision, the judges decide to visit the existing homes of the two finalists. The house where the black family lives turns out to be kind of careworn and messy; the house where the gays live is immaculate and furnished like something out of Architectural Digest.

The gays win.

Oh, delicious irony. Now, can they get married and have the reception in the backyard like everybody else? 😉

It’s a show you’ll probably never see, but one Chicago Tribune senior correspondent got a scoop on the biggest no-show reality show of the season: he and his multi-racial family live in the neighborhood where controversial and already cancelled “Welcome to the Neighborhood” was filmed.

The show will probably never air because the premise violates all kinds of fair-housing guidelines, and the network decided to pull it after it engendered a firestorm of criticism and protests.

Still, I’d like to see it show up on some late-night cable channel and decide if the “judges” in the show (3 white, Christian, well-off families) should be judged themselves.

Teen Petitions Downing Street

Posted on by
Reply

Teenager Takes Petition To Downing Street

A British teen is taking 2,000 signed petition cards to Downing Street in London in an effort to keep attention focused on world poverty. It came out of an event sponsored by the Church of England, which has reasons of its own to keep the MakePovertyHistory movement going. What with all the terrorism news, it seems like MPH has gotten pushed off the international radar, but it’s still there, still pushing toward the goal.

Minnesota Hot Dish

Posted on by
1

Minnesota Public Radio’s Fitzgerald Theater: A Prairie Home Companion Movie

I thought David was kidding the other morning when he told me about this. It was on one of the NPR weekend news shows – I must have been completely unconscious, or perhaps I was downstairs indulging in Honey Nut Cheerios and fooling around with the iPod. IN any case, the thought of a movie about PHC, set backstage at the (fictitious) last broadcast, directed by (this is not fictitious) Robert Altman is just sixty-seven kinds of surreal.

Woody Harrelson is in it. Why?
Meryl Streep is in it. Why?
Lily Tomlin is in it. Not so much why, somehow.
Virginia Madsen is in it. She’s come a long way since Highlander II.

According to the Fitzgerald Theater link, the movie has wrapped, but there’s plenty of Minnesota hot dish still going around – much of it concerning the massive amounts of sushi ordered and consumed by various cast members.

Apparently there’s some sort of wacky conflict introduced into the plot, with a conglomerate shutting the production down (oooh, those evil corporate bastids!). Apparently the tension induced by putting on a more or less “live” radio show, keeping musicians and on-air talent wrangled and ready to to, and dealing with unexpected glitches isn’t enough for Hollywood. Not to mention the “face made for radio” issues – although I am a big admirer of Garrison Keillor’s, he’s not exactly box office material.

I’ve been listening to “Prairie Home” almost since the very beginning – they started in 1974, and I was listening regularly by about 1980 or earlier. It freaks me out that it’s been on the air (with a break or two) for 30 years. Whenever this movie comes out, I guess we’re going to HAVE to see it just to find out what the hell the deal is (also, to possibly see “Bertha’s Kitty Boutique”).